by Pierre Boss
Would you like to certify your real estate portfolio or a new construction project according to a sustainable building label? Are you planning a new building or renovation that meets an ecological standard? A building certification sets high quality standards and makes sustainability an objectively measurable variable. In addition, certification enables you to make statements concerning the sustainability performance of a property over its entire life cycle. Sustainable construction and operation creates economic and ecological added value compared to conventional projects. The environment and resources are conserved, and the well-being and productivity of building users are increased. With the sustainability standards and sustainability labels available on the market, the building operation of entire real estate portfolios is evaluated and optimized.
The urgency of sustainable construction is well-known, at least since the Paris Agreement in 2015. We support public and private clients in the development and certification of buildings and sites that comply with the LEED BD+C, DGNB/DGNB Switzerland, BREEAM, MINERGIE-ECO, WELL, Passive House Standard or 2000-Watt sites labels. To assess demonstrably sustainable building operation, we certify according to the LEED O+M, BREEAM Bestand, GEFMA 160 and 2000-Watt-Areale labels.
Intep has been successfully implementing certification projects for over 40 years and has played a key role in the development of several certification systems. These include, for example, Minerige-Eco and SNBS 1.5. Through our involvement in the development and further development of standards and sustainability labels, as well as our mandate as project managers for the 2000-Watt sites, we are always directly involved in the latest developments and can incorporate this knowledge into our consulting services.
If applied early and consistently, a certification system is a valuable planning aid that lays the foundation for sustainable building operation. Operating and maintenance costs, which account for a large part of life cycle costs, can be optimized as early as the project development phase. Precise specifications and the quality control carried out by the certification body ensure stringent implementation of goals set. Thanks to our many years of experience in the field of certification, we remain in close contact with the various certification bodies, which simplifies communication channels. We also have accredited auditors and experts in the DGNB, BREEAM, SGNI and LEED labels. Since 2001 we are a member of the ‘US Green Building Council’ in the USA and since 2006 a certification body for ‘MINERGIE-ECO’ in Switzerland. We are also a founding member of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and the Sustainable Building Network Switzerland (NNBS).
If the existing sustainability standards are not suitable for your construction project, or if you would like to focus on selected sustainability topics, we will develop a suitable target system for you. In doing so, we incorporate existing criteria – where appropriate – in order to achieve good comparability and resilience of the results. This is made possible by our many years of experience with a wide variety of construction projects in planning and consulting as well as in stakeholder processes.