NF Tertiary Building certification - the HQE® approach crosses frontiers
Developed countries are increasingly concerned with questions of sustainable development, particularly in buildings. Many countries have their own certification, so that they can certify environment and energy performances of buildings, including the HQE® approach in France, Breeam in the United Kingdom, Passivhaus in Germany, etc.… But this variety of evaluations and certifications does not facilitate international environmental commitments.
CSTB, CertiVéA (CSTB subsidiary and French organisation responsible for NF Tertiary Buildings certification - HQE® approach), and the BRE (Building Research Establishment – British organisation issuing the BREEAM certificate) set up the SB Alliance (Sustainable Building Alliance) network in April 2008, involving several European and worldwide partners. The objective is to make methods of evaluating the environmental quality of buildings converge internationally. The major difficulty consists of taking account of the specific features of each country and making these systems as uniform as possible.
Like this internationalisation of evaluation systems, the NF Tertiary Buildings - HQE® approach certification is now exported internationally, through three certified office operations.
Serenity, Luxembourg
The emphasis was put on reductions of energy consumption, and particularly thermal insulation, solar panels, materials with a low impact on the environment, low consumption light fittings, sorting of waste, recovery of water for toilets, control of maintenance costs, etc.
Client: CLi - Architect: Tatiana Fabeck Architect - Net floor area: 26,280 sq m - Delivery planned for the end of 2009.
Van Volxem, Belgium
A sustainable development approach is used for this project located on an old emblematic and historic site in Brussels. The operation has a high energy performance (22 kWh/sq m for heating – the cost of energy consumption will only be half as much as for a standard office building), cooling needs will be satisfied passively, logical water management (limitation of water consumption, extensive development of green flat roofs, etc.), etc.
Client: JCX Immo – Architect: Art &Build Architect s.a. – Net floor area: 19,501 sq m - Delivery planned for October 2010.
Vertigo, Luxembourg
Vertigo is located on a site that enjoys good visibility with local services. The main environmental characteristics of the operation are lower operating costs, selection of sound materials and efficient ventilation for the well being of users, control of impacts of the building during and after construction (eco-construction 100% recycled steel structure). The building will use household waste as its fuel, recovery of rain water for WCs, optimised management of collected waste.
Client: ALLFIN – Architect: Kohlenberg & Ruppert Premium Properties – Net floor area: 33,700 sq m - Delivery planned for December 2009.
