AWARD WINNER | XCO2 chimes with what we want to do as a business, adds Kordel. However, it was the companys hotel work in Southeast Asia that led to it opening an office in Singapore in 2016. We have a strong reputation with hotel operators in the area, and we felt that being closer to architects and developers based in Hong Kong and Singapore was really important, he recalls. Many of the hotels and resorts that XCO2 work on in the region tend to be located on remote islands, without access to an electrical grid or mains water, so its net zero design is a practical necessity rather than a nice-to-have solution. To have a holistically sustainable development, circularity around water, waste and energy is important, as is solar energy generation, Kordel explains. XCO2 is also involved in charitable work in the region, including with the Hemis Monastic School in Northern India. Here, it is working pro bono on the design of a new school for Buddhist monks, located next to a 17th-century Buddhist monastery. The scheme is designed to use predominantly passive means to achieve thermal comfort in a cold, high-altitude desert with annual temperature swings of 60oC. Key to the success of the schools challenging design is dynamic thermal modelling. This has been used from the earliest design stages to test and finetune a variety of measures such as Trombe walls to improve the buildings performance. Computational fluid dynamics have also been used to design and size the buildings solar latrines, which feature dark-painted solar chimneys to passively ventilate the toilets. The use of digital tools and digital innovation are seen as potential growth areas for the business an opportunity that Site photo from Hemis Monastic School, a new residential school for 500 trainee monks in Northern Ladakh, 13,000ft up in the Himalayas The new solar installation at the back-of-house facilities at the Soneva Jani luxury eco resort in the Maldives has led to the company setting up the XCO2 Lab, to help it identify problems and timeintensive processes ripe for automation. The lab is intended to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and is led by Aidan Kelly, technical lead for the CIBSE Society of Digital Engineering steering group and contributor to CIBSE Journal. In addition to contributing articles for publication, XCO2 shares knowledge by making time for its engineers to get involved with industry initiatives such as LETI and, more recently, the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard. So whats next for the developing practice? Now that were post-pandemic, we want to push towards growing the business, our client base, and the scale of projects we work on, says Kordel. Alongside the interesting, much smaller, more bespoke projects that we enjoy doing, were now working on schemes with thousands of homes where we can have an even bigger impact. CJ 22 February 2024 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Feb 24 pp20-22 XCO2 Award winner.indd 22 26/01/2024 15:23