Stibbe office building in Amsterdam acquires BREEAM ‘In Use’ certificates

Inside Stibbe

After gaining BREEAM Excellent New Construction status for our newly-built office in 2016, we are now proud to have been awarded the BREEAM ‘In Use’ Asset Performance (excellent), Building Management (excellent) and Occupier Management (very good) certificates, in recognition of our ambition to improve the sustainability of our office building and the way we make use of it.

After building our sustainable and environmentally friendly headquarters, including the green sedum roof on the entire east wing, the nesting boxes and the thermal energy storage we use to cool and heat our building, we have implemented a procurement and environmental policy helping us to make choices that are more sustainable.

Our new procurement policy entails that we check the efforts our suppliers make to be or become more sustainable and environmentally friendly, and that we will aim to work with suppliers who have a clear CSR policy in place. In addition, we buy as many "green" products as possible – from bicycles and an electric company car, to paper and pens.

Our new environmental policy can be seen in the purchase of the electric company car and a new choice of energy supplier in January 2021. Now, 70% of our energy comes from wind and solar. We have been monitoring our CO2 emissions since 2013 and aim to reduce them every year. We offset our remaining CO2 emissions by purchasing Gold Standard credits, supporting the development of new sustainable technology projects.

We have over 10 waste streams in place, allowing us to separate our waste into streams including paper, plastics, grease, glass, chemical, swill, coffee, coffee cups, paper towels and residual waste.

We encourage everyone working at Stibbe to use bikes and public transport and have office bikes available for short distance travel to external meetings.

Lastly, we carry out frequent maintenance to ensure the sustainability of our office building, using suppliers who meet the CSR requirements from our procurement policy. Our sedum roof and nesting boxes are of course included in our long-term maintenance planning.

More information can be found (in Dutch) at the BREAAM-NL website.