Unique GPP Business Park development wins CEE Green Building Award

07/12/2011 Written by: Katarzyna Chwalbinska-Kusek No comments

This November Warsaw played host to the inaugural CEE Green Building Awards.  Organised by the Association of Green Building Professionals (Central & Eastern Europe) and Europaproperty, the awards attracted an audience of over 200 representatives from the region’s construction and real estate market.

The awards recognise projects (past, present or still in the pipeline) that have been acknowledged by BREEAM or LEED as confirmed sustainable developments and which have therefore achieved a rating.

GPP Business Park, an industrial park located in Katowice’s Upper Silesia Industrial Park, won the CEE Green Building Awards category for BREEAM Application In-Process. Buro Happold is responsible for the certification assessment process and prepared the pre-assessment for the project, concluding that the investment has the potential to receive an Excellent or even Outstanding score under BREEAM methodology.

Right from concept phase the developers of the GPP Business Park, which is situated within the Upper Silesia Industrial Park, decided to design a ‘green’ building and that it should undergo BREEAM assessment, showing their commitment to sustainability and their awareness of the factors involved.

Mr Mirosław Czarnik , president of the Board in Górnośląski Park Przemysłowy Sp z o.o. said “From the concept phase we decided to design a ‘green’ building, and that it should undergo BREEAM assessment in order to demonstrate our high level of environmental awareness and  commitment to sustainability. The initial informal pre-assessment carried out by Buro Happold proved that our project has the potential to achieve a high score under the BREEAM methodology. The project team’s ambition is to aim for Excellent or even the highest available rating – Outstanding. Being nominated for and then winning the award from the Green Building Awards is a confirmation of the high level of ‘green building’ standard applied to the investment.”

The Upper Silesia Industrial Park will use the Tri-generation system to provide the simultaneous generation of cooling, heat and power which will enable a significant reduction in the buildings’ operational costs and will consequently have a direct impact on tenants’ leases.
The GPP Business Park is a unique development for industrial parks in Europe; it is hoped that winning the CEE Green Building award will help in the creation of a business centre in Katowice dedicated to responsible tenants representing the BPO/SSC/R&D/IT sectors.