Construction has begun on the first phase of the £300m Mittal Children’s Medical Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust , which is on target to become the UK’s ‘greenest’ medical building to date.

The 323,000 sq ft scheme, designed by UK-based architect Llewelyn Davies Yeang, is estimated to offset more than 20,000 tonnes of CO² annually - the equivalent to the typical yearly carbon footprint of around 2,000 people living in the UK.

These figures are based on the scheme’s NEAT assessment, the health sector equivalent of BREEAM accreditation, in which the scheme has achieved an overall ‘Excellent’ Rating.

This is a major step forward to achieving the hospital’s targets of a 120% carbon reduction and a more than 60% renewable energy contribution by 2016, when Phase two of the project is due to complete.

It is one of the few hospital projects to being onsite this year and will bolster the facilities of one of the world’s leading tertiary children’s hospitals.