Dalby Forest visitor centre, North Yorkshire

Photograph: Dalby Forest visitor centre

What do yoghurt pots, old Wellington boots and mobile phones have in common? They were all recycled and used to make the reception desk of this super-green new visitor centre. Old tyres and inner tubes make up the roof cover and what's more, the whole building can be entirely recycled at the end of its life.

The forest next door is proving handy – it supplies wood chips to power the boiler and is also where the wood used to clad the building came from. A micro wind turbine and an array of photovoltaic panels supply the electricity. Even the toilets are flushed with rainwater gathered on the roof and stored in a tank, reducing the amount taken from the village well.

The building last month won the prime minister's Better Public Building award for 2007. The government praised the building for its "uncompromising commitment to sustainability".

RSPB environment and education centre, Purfleet, Thames Gateway

Photograph: James Brittain

Honingham earth-sheltered social housing scheme, Honingham, Norfolk

Photograph: Pedders Way housing association

Wind turbines and birds are not ideal stable mates, but the RSPB is thinking about installing one at its newest - and greenest - visitor centre in the Thames Gateway. The carbon-neutral development already uses sheep wool for insulation and nearly all materials were locally sourced. Two translucent roof cones allow daylight in and also glow in the dark, acting as beacons for those trekking back late at night across the marshes. The building was opened last year by Bill Oddie, the nation's favourite twitcher, and it also found its way on to the long list for the UK's highest architectural accolade, the Stirling prize.Gary and Keron Lawson, who live in one of four, two-bedroom bungalows say it's like living the dream. And paying just £3.80 per week for running costs, it doesn't sound far off.

There's no conventional heating or cooling system and the development has zero carbon emissions. The houses are earth-sheltered, meaning the north, west and east walls are covered by an earth mound, almost like putting the building in its very own overcoat. Only the south face of the house is left open to capture heat and light from the sun. "Light comes through the full-length windows and it stays at 72°F throughout the winter," Lawson says. "We hadn't heard of anything like this at all before we moved in."

The scheme was commissioned and is managed by Pedders Way housing association. More earth-sheltered homes are in the pipeline and an earth-sheltered business campus.

Kingsmead primary school, Northwich, Cheshire

Photograph: Kingsmead primary school

The National Trust headquarters, Swindon

Photograph: National Trust/Adam Moore

Adnams distribution centre, Southwold, Suffolk

Photograph: Alex Hill

If you've got children and you want them to be green, Kingsmead primary is the ideal school. The school is designed as a learning tool for pupils to understand more about the environment. They've got active voltage displays for the solar panels, as well as an electronic meter that shows how much rainwater is collected by the inverted roof. To stop the little ones nodding off during a long sweaty lesson they've also installed a system (run on renewable energy, of course) that automatically opens and shuts the windows, skylights and blinds, allowing fresh air to flow through the building and shading pupils where necessary.You'd expect the National Trust to have an environmentally sound building and luckily enough, they occupy one of the greenest offices in the UK. Carbon emissions are 65% less than similar developments, largely due to an of array photovoltaic panels on the roof, which provide 30% of the annual electricity use. Eco-friendly materials, such as PVC-free linoleum and water-based paints were used throughout the building. There are some ingenious ideas here too, like the carpets in the building made from wool from the Trust's flocks of Herdwick sheep and the ventilation snouts on the roof which come from recycled beer cans.The secret to the success of Britain's greenest warehouse is cannabis. Or rather, hemp, which turns out to be an excellent green construction material because it is fireproof, doesn't degrade and is unattractive to vermin. At the brewery, it was used with lime as cavity wall insulation for the main warehouse.

The building also claims to have the largest green roof in Britain. It's densely planted with alpine sedum mosses and traps most of the rainwater that falls onto it, reducing the risk of flooding. Solar panels supply 80% of the power needed to heat water, and rainwater collected in an underground tank is used to flush toilets and wash the centre's vehicles.

Eco centre at Cockermouth school, west Cumbria

Photograph: Cockermouth school

BowZed, Bow, east London

Photograph: ZedFactory

The pupils at this school don't need to travel down to Cornwall to visit the Eden project – they've got their very own version. There are four biomes in the new eco centre to replicate various types of ecosystems, including arid, alpine and wet climates. Although compost toilets didn't make the final cut, there are some inventive reuses of materials. The paving slabs that form the foundations are recycled from a derelict cinema, and the foundation piles are old food drums. A nine-metre high wind turbine provides electricity for lighting and supplementary heating if needed.East London is perhaps not where you'd expect to find one of the country's most sustainable building but these block of four zero-fossil energy flats have so impressed the government that both Ruth Kelly and Gordon Brown have paid it a visit.

Designed by pioneering eco-architect Bill Dunster, who was also behind the BedZed development in south London, the building is so well insulated there are no central heating systems in the flats. The inhabitants – which include one of the architects who designed the development – get 40% of their electricity from photovoltaic panels and 50% from a micro wind turbine on the stair tower. Hot water is provided by a boiler powered by wood pellets and the residents say three tonnes is enough to fuel the four flats for a year.

The show apartment cost 15% more than an average property the same size, and was bought for £275,000, prompting environmentalists to claim that there is a healthy appetite for eco-housing in the market place.

Jubilee library, Brighton

Photograph: James Brittain/Bennetts Associates

Next time you're in Brighton and have tired of the usual tourist trappings, head north of the Lanes to what is rapidly becoming another stop on the sightseeing tour of the town. Politically controversial because of its procurement by the council through the private finance initiative (PFI) process, the Jubilee library has won the hearts and minds of the locals for its design and environmental values.

The architecture, engineering and green elements are all blended into one here, using the cement in the building structure as an energy store to either heat or cool the building as necessary. There are also solar-controlled louvres on the enormous glass frontage, which stop the building from over-heating.

Eden Foundation building, St Austell, Cornwall

Photograph: Eden Foundation

Architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw has found a better use than fish and chip wrapping for his old newspapers. He's used them as insulation for the floors, wall and roof of the Eden project's offices, making it one of the best insulated buildings in the UK. The building is raised off the ground on timber columns to minimise the volume of soil removed from the site during construction, and also to reduce the amount of cement (one of the most un-eco-friendly products around) needed to build it. To top it all off, the development is entirely PVC-free. So, next time you visit the Eden project, make sure you sneak a peek at the offices as well.

· This article was amended on Friday November 23 2007. We quoted a tenant at the Honingham earth-sheltered social housing scheme as saying that the buildings stayed at temperatures of 72°C during the winter. This should have been 72°F. We also attached the wrong credit to the photograph of RSPB environment and education centre. The photo was taken by James Brittain. These errors have been corrected.