Visionary, the modern office building located in Prague and developed by Skanska, has received LEED Platinum certification for Core & Shell, earning a total of 95 points. It is the highest-rated sustainable building in CEE and the second-best in Europe, according to available information. It’s the 30th office building developed by Skanska in the CEE region over the last nine years that has gained LEED certification.
Thanks to its design and implemented technology, Visionary reduces the costs of both consumption of energy by 42.9 percent and drinking water by 40 percent. More than 85 percent of the fixed working desks in the building have sufficient daylight access and almost 100 percent of them have an external view. Green energy purchased from Amper Market supplies 100 percent of the building’s electricity, sourced from renewable power sources.
The LEED certification also favorably evaluated Visionary’s thorough use of materials used in the building interiors which have zero or a low content of volatile organic compounds, as well as building materials made of recycled content (16 percent), FSC certified wood (58 percent) and materials from local sources (37 percent).
“It is estimated that on average we spend 90 percent of our time indoors. Materials with a low emission of harmful substances reduce cases of sick building syndrome, and as a consequence, improves the well-being of people working in the building. This is important because about 90 percent of typical operational business costs for companies are related to employees, including their salaries and benefits. Any improvement in employee health and productivity can have far greater financial benefits for the employer than saving on energy or water,” commented Adam Targowski, Sustainability Manager at Skanska’s commercial development unit in the CEE region.
The Visionary office building, completed in the spring of 2018 in Prague’s Holešovice district, ranks among the top sustainable office buildings in Europe and around the world with an excellent evaluation of 95 points from its LEED Platinum certification for Core & Shell. According to available information, Visionary is the best-evaluated green building in CEE, second in Europe (behind the AA81 office building in Madrid with 97 points) and shares fourth place in the world with two other buildings.
LEED certification is standard in all of the buildings that Skanska’s commercial development unit in the CEE region has completed in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania since 2009. To date, Skanska has developed 48 projects that have received LEED certification – 20 have been certified with the highest Platinum level and 26 with the second highest level – Gold. Skanska has gained both Core&Shell (30 office buildings) and Commercial Interior (18 interior projects) LEED certificates for its investments.
In addition to LEED certification, Skanska is on track to acquire a new WELL certificate for Visionary office building as well as for one office building of Warsaw’s Spark complex. WELL assesses the quality of the building’s interior environment and its impact on the people working within it.
“Skanska’s Futureproof Workplaces strategic offer is a promise to our Customers that no matter which project of Skanska they will choose it will be developed according to our three focus areas: Design, Sustainability, Innovation. WELL certification is a natural step forward for Skanska. When certifying our projects with the LEED standard, we focus on green and sustainable development, whereas the standard created by International WELL Building Institute is all about the wellbeing of the office building users. Individuals and companies are more and more concerned about such topics, so Skanska decided to seek external confirmation of our pro-wellbeing efforts through WELL certification,” said Adam Targowski.
The Visionary office building and the first phase of Spark complex will undergo certification in the second half of 2018, and if it succeeds, will be the first office buildings in the CEE region to be awarded a WELL certificate. Currently, the Visionary complex with a total leasable area of 23,000 sqm is fully occupied, and as of June 2018 it is owned and managed by the Austrian real estate company CA Immo.
