But the "greenproof" design of Athlone's new town centre, scheduled to open in October with a flagship international hotel brand and a plethora of new-to-the-midlands retail tenants, may just turn a few heads that would otherwise be staring grimly toward one or the other end of the N6.

Although Ireland does not yet have a set of enforceable "green" building regulations, developers and large energy-intensive firms are moving to adopt the design principles on which any future carbon-reducing codes are likely to be built.

In Athlone, green thinking was incorporated from the start when waste management firm Advanced Environmental Systems (AES), a subsidiary of Bord na Mona, won the 2.5m three-year contract with Bannon Commercial, the property's managers, to provide an 80% recycling waste service to the centre . . . about double the industry average. AES already provides waste services to 22 other shopping centres . . . in many cases amounting to a "hump and dump" system . . . but because it was involved in the Athlone project early on, it could be more ambitious.

AES assumed a consultative role with architects Murray O'Laoire . . . themselves committed to "stitching and mending" their design into the existing urban environment . . . and persuaded the designers to fit each retail unit with a designated waste area.

That way, rather than relying on each retail tenant to dispose of waste appropriately, AES can provide an in-house team to manage the processing on a centre-wide basis, according to sales director Derek Dunne.

"Murray O'Laoire were very receptive to changing their designs to accommodate our goals, " said Dunne. "We want to lift the banner on recycling a little bit; without a doubt this will be a model for waste management in the future."

The AES approach is of a piece with the overall environmental standards of the development, something to which the town and county councils have been paying closer attention in the last year, prompting a tighter focus on energy and waste conservation, according to both Dunne and Nicola Ross, marketing manager at Gallico Developments, which owns the 500m centre.

"We see the town centre as a flagship for environmentally responsible building, " said Ross, adding that even local soil on-site was recycled into the cement for the project, while the fixtures at the razed Royal Hotel were shipped in three containers to Belarus to fit out an orphanage. A local dance group even got a wooden rehearsal floor out of the deal.

To save on energy use and costs, engineers RN Murphy installed a water-based geothermal hybrid loop system for both heating and cooling the 73,000 square metres of retail space in the centre. The covered pedestrian areas, which are open to the surrounding streets, require no climate control.

Athlone isn't the only large scale development that is future-proofing against more environmentally stringent development demands. Last week Diageo proudly announced that the 56-acre Guinness brewery at St James's Gate had become only the second company in Ireland to be accredited with the IS393 energy management standard by the National Standards Authority.

The standard commits Diageo to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Already this year the company has reduced thermal energy use by 7.5% and electricity use by 5%, according to company figures.

Diageo also said it cut carbon output by 80,000 tonnes between 2004 and 2006 with its combined heat power system.

And only last week, UCD announced a 450m campus overhaul with Ingenhoven Architects. The new Gateway complex integrates low energy and building control systems to reduce total energy consumption and so-called "intelligent" facades provide for insulation, natural ventilation and maximum daylight. Efficient lighting systems, solar and geothermal-backed conditioning systems and "non stand-by" technologies are also expected to reduce energy demand. If these projects are not setting a new standard for greenproofing, developers are at least demonstrating an understanding that there is a new set of environmental demands in the marketplace.