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Thermal images of the buildings which will host the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green Party conferences were taken by R&SA's specialist energy management and loss control team. The insurer's experts regularly undertake detailed audits of premises for commercial clients as part of their risk management consultancy to help property owners reduce their energy consumption and environmental impacts.

The pictures – captured using sophisticated and highly sensitive thermal imaging cameras – show the areas of greatest heat loss (through bright colours), and a spectrum illustrating temperatures in different parts of the buildings.

The results of the test are as follows:
4th place: Despite the Conservative Party's focus on environmental issues, their chosen venue – Blackpool's Winter Gardens – suffers from the greatest heat loss of the four venues. Given the size and age of the building, which was built in 1878, this may not be a huge surprise. However, the images show particular heat loss around the windows and in large areas of the building's façade due to a high number of reflective surfaces.

3rd place: Perhaps a bigger revelation is that the Green Party's conference venue – The Cornerstone, part of Liverpool Hope University – is not the most environmentally friendly of the four buildings. Bearing in mind that The Cornerstone was built around 150 years ago, the building fares well overall, thanks to a combination of original features (thick, insulating walls) and newer additions (double-glazed windows). However, the building's side elevation and glass frontage appears to let it down and the heating system may also have degraded over time.

From a thermographic perspective, there was little to choose between the second and first placed venues, though after a detailed evaluation, the following positions were agreed by the R&SA experts:

2nd place: The venue for the Labour Party conference – Gordon Brown's first as Prime Minister – is the Bournemouth International Centre. Completed in the early 1980s, the centre's 2004 redevelopment was clearly money well spent, with the building demonstrating a high level of insulation.

1st place: However, in first place is The Grand, Brighton, which is currently playing host to the Liberal Democrats, who have also pledged to offset the carbon impact of their conference.

Originally completed in 1864, with an imposing, Italian-style façade on Brighton's seafront, The Grand was rebuilt and refurbished in keeping with its original style after the 1984 bombing. It is also likely to have the lowest carbon footprint of the four during the conference season.

Commenting on the images, David Smith, Director of Construction, Power and Engineering at Royal & SunAlliance, said:
"The four venues fared well in terms of their heat emissions, and there was very little to choose between the two top-placed buildings in particular. The political parties should therefore be commended for their choice of venue and the venue owners for ensuring that these buildings – which are diverse in terms of age, size and construction – are well insulated.

"The serious point to our light-hearted research is to emphasise that it is possible to minimise the emissions from any large commercial building, regardless of its origins, reducing its environmental impact and creating cost savings through lower fuel bills."

At the end of last year, Royal & SunAlliance announced that it had become the first insurer in the UK to become carbon neutral, as part of its long-term strategy to reduce its impact on the environment.