Prize bite for Thistle centre

Stirling shopping arcade wins the Green Apple Award

The prize is part of an international campaign to find the greenest companies, councils and communities.

The Thistles beat off stiff competition in the Environmental Improvement/ Energy Management category to be accorded with a Green Apple Gold award, the highest level of recognition.

The award acknowledges the centre’s reductions in energy omissions and how, as an older building, it is being made more sustainable.

It has also been invited to have its winning paper published in The Green Book, a leading international reference on environmental best practices.

The centre could also progress to represent the UK in the Green World Awards, and the European Business Awards for the Environment.

Centre director Phil Byrne said: “To have been accorded gold status, the highest level of recognition, is especially rewarding. We faced stiff competition, particularly from newer shopping centres across the country so for us to have won gold exemplifies the level of effort and commitment we have undertaken in improving the energy efficiency of the building.”

All waste from The Thistles is recycled or recovered and enough electricity was saved in 2015-16 to charge an iPhone for more than 1000 years or make more than two million cups of tea.

Enough water was also saved in 2015-16 to fill The PEAK swimming pool or to make every man, woman and child in Stirling 28 cups of tea each ( 2.4 million cups of tea in total).

The Thistles is also a chemicalfree cleaning zone, using an aqueous ozone water system to clean.

The centre also introduced a dedicated shopping centre Sustainability Award accorded quarterly to retailers, teams or individuals who are making positive changes to their environmental impact.