Over 250 buildings and real estate projects from Romania were certified as ‘green buildings’ after one of the international sustainable schemes, BREEAM, LEED, EDGE and WELL, according to BuildGreen data, the leading consultant in the field of sustainable building design, development and certification in Romania.
Over 40 office buildings, commercial centres, warehouses, residential projects and factories were sustainably certified in 2019. The most significant percentage, approximately 75%, are located in Bucharest, followed by Cluj–Napoca, Timisoara and Brasov.
”The implementation of sustainable principles already become a widespread practice in the real estate market in Romania. We already have office buildings with sophisticated systems that reduce energy consumption and increase occupant comfort, buildings designed to achieve maximum levels of sustainable certification, we are witnessing a greater openness from residential developers towards green certifications and the first sustainable certified factory. On the other hand, over 95% of the public buildings and the ones delivered prior to 2010 require refurbishing, so there is still much work to be done”, stated Razvan Nica, managing director of BuildGreen and a pioneer of sustainability in Romania.
BuildGreen was involved in 2019 in the certification of over 20 real estate projects, among which are Renault Bucharest Connected, The Bridge, Expo Business Park, Oregon Park, Isho Timisoara, Matei Millo, three new buildings from Coresi Brasov, the new Artic factory from Ulmi or Luxuria Domenii Residence.
2019 also brought the first BREEAM certifications with an Outstanding level, the highest existing at a Global level, for the Lidl and Penny Market stores from Bucharest and Otopeni. Also, the office project Bucharest Business Garden, developed by Vastint, achieved the highest level of rating for the American certification LEED scheme.
In 2019 were also registered the first multiple certifications achieved by a real estate project – Bucharest Renault Connected with BREEAM and EDGE, the developer thus wanting to maximize the benefits that a green certification brings. BuildGreen’s data show that real estate projects that achieve a high level of sustainable certification will benefit from the higher energy efficiency of 25% – 35% on average, with occupant comfort and employee productivity being also higher. Alternative energy sources, such as geothermal pumps or solar panels, intelligent facades that include sophisticated shading systems designed to reduce energy consumption but also improve employee comfort, intelligent heating and lighting systems depending on the occupancy level of the buildings and charging stations for electric vehicles are just a few of the technical solutions implemented by developers.
”Sustainability is increasingly widespread in the commercial segment of the real estate market. Specific principles and norms thus became a practice also on the logistic segment and we hope to see more and more ultra-modern factories, with reduced energy consumption and implicitly a lower carbon footprint; we also hope to witness a higher number of certified residential projects in the future. The new 2020 EU regulations stipulate that all newly constructed buildings must have a high level of energy efficiency, a fact that will encourage developers to implement more modern technical solutions, aimed at achieving high energy efficiency”, added Razvan Nica.
BuildGreen has been involved to date in the sustainable certification processes of over 200 buildings and real estate projects, with a surface of over 5 million square meters and an overall investment value of over 8 billion Euros. BuildGreen, which was founded by Razvan Nica in 2010 and has two offices, in Bucharest and Prague, was involved in real estate projects across 17 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lebanon, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, Rusia and United Kindom.
