Sponda Plc Press release 13 April 2011, 11:00 a.m.
LEED certification granted to Sponda's office building on Sörnäistenkatu
Property investment company Sponda Plc has obtained LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Environmental Certification for an Existing Building for its office property at Sörnäistenkatu 2 in Helsinki, close to the Kalasatama area. The major tenants of the office building, which was completed in 2008, are Suomen Lähikauppa Oy and Tryg Insurance.
LEED is an international certification system for green buildings based on independent third party assessment.
The LEED certification process for an existing building involves the assessment and measurement of the building's environmental efficiency, including aspects such as energy consumption, indoor environmental quality, cleaning and maintenance as well as the use of materials, energy and water by the building's occupants. The certification also has an effect on the future use of the property by defining the optimal ways of working, from an environmental standpoint, for various functions.
Sponda adheres to high environmental standards in its property development operations. As such, the Sörnäistenkatu office building passed the certification process without the need to make significant changes - despite the fact that the building's construction was based on design requirements for the year 2007.
- The certification process gives us the opportunity to offer our clients environmentally sound and high-quality business premises. We also support the energy-efficient use of our properties through our Energy Efficiency Programme, which aims at achieving energy savings in partnership with our clients. In the future we want to intensify the co-operation in developing more sustainable business premises, says Sponda's Sustainability Manager Tiina Huovinen.
Tenants play a key role in the certification process for an existing property. The tenants at the Sörnäistenkatu office building were actively involved in the LEED process.
- When we moved into these premises, we set a goal of making our own ways of working increasingly sustainable and responsible. The environmental certification is an excellent match with our own business principles, as operating local grocery stores is an ecological act in itself, suggests Hanna Kivimäki, Environmental Specialist at Suomen Lähikauppa Oy.
The LEED for Existing Building - Operation and Maintenance system comprises some 60 standards for assessing the building's operations. The LEED certification was granted by the U.S. Green Building Certification Institute and Sponda was assisted in the certification process by Vahanen Oy consultants.
More information on LEED certification is available on the website of the system's administrator, the U.S. Green Building Council, at www.usgbc.org.
Sponda Plc
Further information: Tiina Huovinen, Sustainability Manager, tel. +358 40 779 9542
Sponda Plc is a real estate investment company specialising in commercial properties in the largest cities in Finland and in Russia. Sponda's business concept is to own, lease and develop office, retail and logistics properties into environments that promote the business success of its clients. The fair value of Sponda's investment properties is approximately EUR 2.9 billion and the leasable area is around 1.5 million m².