External wall cladding is part Minerit composite board and part locally grown Larch. Internal wall lining is plasterboard which is a by-product of electricity generation. Where possible, materials have been sourced locally to reduce the impact of transport. Little plastic and no aluminium has been used as these materials both have very high embodied energy. The Walter Segal construction method has been used and this considerably reduces the amount of concrete needed in foundations.
Finishes are of paints and varnishes which use natural solvent rather than petrochemical.
Your average builder's merchant is not the place to start asking about where something comes from or how it is made. Several specialist publications such as the Green Building Handbook and the AECB magazine 'Building for a Future' are currently researching what impact production has on the local ecology, on the health of the workers in that industry and how sustainable the process is. One of the most difficult tasks we have encountered was in specifying timber. Hopefully the recently launched Woodmark certification scheme will help guarantee that timber is grown in a sustainable way. Much timber in the building industry is unnecessarily treated with arsenic.