The building work for the Eco-House project will start shortly and the centre is scheduled for completion in 2011.

Once up and running, it will house a series of interactive displays and provide information to encourage visitors to reduce their own carbon footprints.

Tullis Russell marketing director Malcolm Sinclair said: "The announcement that planning consent has now been granted and the building work can start soon is fantastic news.

"The plan to build an eco-education centre stemmed from our desire to mark our 200th anniversary last year by giving something back to the community that we have supported and which has supported us over that time."

The project was given £497,000 in backing from the Climate Change Fund in September last year. This is in addition to the £350,000 already committed to the project by Tullis Russell and its separate charitable company Russell Trust.

Tullis Russell will provide the land and maintenance for the proposed building at its Markinch, Fife-based paper mill where it is also due to begin building a £100m 45MW biomass combined heat and power (CHP) facility to replace an existing coal-fired plant this year.

The CHP plant is hoped to be in operation by 2012 and will produce 6% of Scotland's renewable energy generation targets.