The new state-of-the-art Inverclyde Academy has won its architects two prizes in the International Green Apple Awards 2009.

The design brief for the £29m building in Greenock has already been held as an example of good practice by the Scottish Government for other local authorities to follow.

Now Studio E Architects have been given the National Gold Award - Scotland and the Scotland National Green Champion Award by the Green Organisation, an independent, non-political, non-profit organisation that recognises, rewards and promotes environmental best practice around the world.

Councillor Iain McKenzie, Convener of Inverclyde Council's Education and Lifelong Learning Committee said: "The architects Studio E were commissioned because of their proven track record in sustainability and design.

"We wanted to give pupils the best environment to learn in, but were also conscious of our responsibility to the environmental impact of the new school.

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"Inverclyde Academy has given us the perfect blueprint to press ahead with the PPP phase of our Schools Estate programme that will see another £80m spent building four new schools."

The design was developed to minimise energy consumption, water consumption, and CO2 emissions.

The building incorporates a 50kw wind turbine (the first in the UK on a monopole tower) and a 5 sq m Photovoltaic array to provide power to the school. These are also used as an educational aid.

Uniform daylight in the building provides well day-lit teaching spaces, reducing the requirement for artificial light. The use of daylight dimming, absence detection and high efficiency lamps ensures that the energy demand for lighting is minimised.

Tom Reid, Inverclyde Council's Head of Schools Estate said: "Recent educational studies in America and Australia have shown that improved environmental conditions can help pupils to improve attainment.

"The building design has incorporated these concepts to ensure that pupils are provided with appropriate environmental conditions. Inverclyde Academy certainly does that and we are confident our new schools will match if not exceed the incredibly high standard set by the design."

The architects received their awards for Inverclyde Academy at a ceremony at the historic Hampton Court Palace in London.

Supporters of the Green Apple Awards campaign include the Environment Agency, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, the Chartered Institution of Environmental Health and various other professional bodies.

(GK/JM)