About the Building

The Kantoorpand Flamco Group project sees the development of a new 2975m office for Flamco Group. Built in a new business park in Almere, the Netherlands, the new offices will provide 2975m 2 of office and meeting space across 2 floors, whilst also offering excellent accessibility due to its position next to one of the country’s major highways.

As as a producer of energy-efficient HVAC solutions, sustainability is at the center of Flamco Group’s operations. One of Flamco Group’s main ambitions is therefore that their new office building is sustainable and energy efficient as possible, to reflect the market in which they operate. To achieve this ambition, the building’ design incorporates numerous measures. An air-to-water heat pump system provides heating and cooling services. 1072 solar panels meet 100% of building and user-related energy consumption, enabling 100% energy performance improvement compared to the national building regulations and carbon neutrality. Consideration of office and facility and design has been used to optimize the working environment to support employee health. This, along with several other measures, enable the development to score an impressive 90.02%.

About the BREEAM Assessment

The building is a great example of what can be achieved when you apply the BREEAM guidelines to a new construction project

– Flamco Group

Flamco Group wanted to construct a new office building and saw the opportunity to do this in a sustainable way through BREEAM. The ambition was not only a sustainable end result but also a sustainable road to the end result, and BREEAM was recognised as offering good guidelines for this, as demonstrated by the responsible construction site management that will be implemented during the construction phase.

As a result of the inclusion of BREEAM, several changes were made to the development and its management. The building’s design and facilities were tailored to the BREEAM guidelines, to provide a healthy office environment to Flamco employees. One example is that the building is equipped with a big curtain wall at the location of the office functions.

In the pursuit of energy efficiency, an energy simulation model was adopted, resulting in design changes so that 100% of both building-related energy consumption and user-related energy consumption is CO2 neutral.

LCA calculations were made to ensure that the design would have the lowest costs during its lifetime and good serviceability of the buildings components. An example for this is the usage of a climate control ceiling throughout the building, that, despite higher investment costs, has lower maintenance and operating costs.

Finally, for the design and construction teams, parties with proven experience in BREEAM projects was sought out, to maximise the delivery of the development.

These changes enabled Flamco Group to score highly across the BREEAM categories.

Green Strategy

Flamco Group has a commitment to people, society and the environment and wants to make a contribution to sustainable developments both in their products and also in the way we do business. With the development of their new offices, there was an opportunity to put this into practice, by placing sustainability at the heart of this project.

The uptake of BREEAM assessment provided the necessary guidelines in order to pursue an environmental friendly building and from this, Flemco Group’s high ambitions were set for the new construction. BREEAM will also help with quality assurance during the construction phase, ensuring that good design translates to a good building in reality.

The strategy utilised to accomplish this was to make several energy calculations during the design phase. Ultimately the design with the best energy benefits compared to the investment required was chosen.

Benefits of Assessing to BREEAM

As a manufacturer of energy-efficient solutions, we have sustainable ambitions. That is why we are seizing this opportunity to build our new office building as sustainably as possible

– Henk Robers, Chief Operational Officer of Flamco

The building will have lower energy costs and improved comfort and building climate through optimal building management, extensive metering and control systems. Above all the new building will offer housing to Flamco that is appropriate to the sustainability ambition of the organisation

-Tom Linneman, BREEAM AP for the project