Krakow now boasts the second most sustainable office building in the world

The offices of AFI Europe received 98.87% in the BREEAM International building classification

The most sustainable office building in Poland and the EU, and the second worldwide, is now in Krakow, the City Hall informed on its website last week. This follows an announcement from earlier in March, that the office building of AFI EUROPE received the prestigious BREEAM certificate during the investment implementation and commissioning phase, with a remarkable score of 98.87%. This is the highest ever recorded in Poland and second only to the famous London headquarters of Bloomberg.

A design that is both user and environmentally friendly

The certification was carried out by the independent company Sweco Polska, which specializes in services for sustainable construction (including BREEAM ecological certificates). The certificate is a multi-criteria evaluation system geared towards sustainable construction.

Each building subject to evaluation must meet high standards in 10 categories: Management, Health and Wellbeing, Energy, Transport, Water, Materials, Waste, Ecology (biodiversity), Prevention of environmental pollution and Innovation. To achieve this success, the Iliard Architecture & Interior Design, responsible for the architectural design of the building, implemented solutions that are both environmentally and user-friendly.

This means that the building (see gallery above), put to use in 2019, boasts among others:

• zero-emission roof solar energy collector systems
• modern energy-saving elevators
• lighting and finishing of office surfaces that do not contain formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds
• the use of CO2 sensors to control the level of ventilation in conference rooms, triggering greater air exchange during meetings
• 14 electric car charging stations
• amenities for cyclists such as bicycle shelter, 8 showers, changing rooms with 180 lockers
• city ​​bike station located next to the building
• green patio with mobile furniture and high-speed Wi-Fi access, inviting employees to work or rest outside
• unobstructed view from the windows (which is not likely to change in the future as there is no possibility to build new buildings nearby), allowing employees inside to rest their eyes by practising focusing on objects at different distances (the so-called re-focus)
• a water-saving irrigation system for greenery (with automatic rain and humidity sensors and an underground rainwater tank)
• green areas, which constitute approx. 42 percent of the plot area (approx. 4110 square metres).

BRE Group, the issuer of BREEAM certificates, is a few days away from announcing their official leaders in sustainable building design and management in the 2021 BREEAM online Awards, 23-25 March. An award that the same building in Krakow won back in 2018 in the Central and Eastern Europe category.