Lighting management specialist Ex-Or has helped Birmingham City Council undertake their own second-city based green revolution, with their services rendering the new £38 million office complex the UK's most environmentally friendly council property ever, ever.

According to the Electrical Portal, the 10 Woodcock Street development comprises 22,000 sq/m of accommodation spread across five storeys, set to play host to 3,000 council workers as they go about their daily duties of 'making recycling really frustrating' and 'issuing parking fines'.

And they'll be doing that jobsworthiness bathed in the glow of environmentally friendly LED light - the Ex-Or MLS Digital Managed Lighting System was installed throughout the building to control the circa 4,000 light fittings in place.

It means that unoccupied offices, washrooms, meeting areas and corridors will not be needlessly illuminated, with energy control in place to ensure no watt or bulb goes to waste.

"Birmingham City Council wanted to incorporate cutting edge sustainable building techniques and technologies into the new building," said Luminaire UK director Ian Bury, whose company supplied the fittings. "Lighting control from Ex-Or is making a significant contribution to the Council's aims of both achieving substantial cuts in energy use and meeting its environmental obligations."

The new building, developed as part of the Council's ongoing Working for the Future programme, hopes to help target the £100 million saving aim the local organisation hopes it can make over the next 25 years, and, for businesses hoping to do the same, lighting is an important part of that.

It's not just about fitting energy-saving LED lighting: controlling that lighting use in commercial properties is a shortcut to cutting a business's bills and carbon output. And everything from sophisticated systems to consumer units can be used to help maintain the electrical supply.

But the target has come under scrutiny: while the Council has promised a 60 per cent cut in overall emissions compared to levels recorded in 1990, a report has found that the organisation has no way of tracking the change - and if the figure isn't met, they could come in for reputational damage as well as fines running into the millions of pounds.