A couple of years ago I measured my carbon footprint using one of the many online calculators and quite smugly walked away with a score of about 2.5 tonnes per year.

It is a hook that John Williams wants to use to attract a new generation of environmentally conscious businesses to the area. John is the sustainable environment executive at Sea Space, the economic development agency for Hastings and Bexhill. With a background in landscape architecture and urban design, his role focuses on developing the area and moving the towns forward while incorporating best practice environmental techniques. “It’s quite wide- ranging,” he says. “I’m also looking at renewable energy projects and looking to Europe at low carbon developments over there.”

John was born in Hastings but moved away to study. He returned seven years ago when a comprehensive development programme started and says he feels very proud to have been involved in projects bringing new education and employment opportunities to the area.

The latest project is Enviro 21 at South Queensway on the outskirts of Hastings, the first in a series of “sustainable innovation parks”, a business park designed to be both low impact and an incubator for up and coming green businesses.

John says: “The project was born out of concern that no one had looked holistically at business park development, that industry as a whole hadn't caught up. So we acquired a site on the edge of Hastings and realised it was a great opportunity to look at how we can make key changes in how we approach things.”

Rather than diving in with building designs, the team started with a sustainability assessment. They examined the basics: energy, waste, water, materials and discussed how they could tackle those areas differently. John says: “Essentially that study went on to look at benchmarks that could potentially be achieved on site, what’s happened elsewhere and how we could move further forward. That early work established principles and types of technology we could incorporate and what wouldn’t be relevant.”

For example, the report established the site, next to the sea and on top of a hill, has a great wind profile so harnessing the wind was seen as a key opportunity. Biomass was flagged up as there are lots of wooded areas nearby.

“We also looked at a range of basic passive design techniques,” says John. Because it’s a sloping site there’s real scope to dig the buildings into the hillside to get insulation from the site itself.”

The first four units are now finished and lease negotiations are taking place. There is also an on-site building called The Exchange, a sustainable restaurant, conference hall, meeting room and exhibition venue.

John says: “We’ve also got a wide range of activities to support the low-carbon sector and an advisory group that provides a link between businesses and academic institutions. We’ve got an interest in making sure sustainable business practices are driven throughout the site and we really hope this area of Hastings will become a focus for East Sussex towards sustainability and into business.”

*Visit www.enviro-21.co.uk for more information.