Qollege sustainability and BREEAM-NL
From Monday, October 30th to Friday, November 3rd, 2023, it's National Climate Week. Leading up to this, we organized an internal Sustainability Qollege on Friday, October 27th. As a team, we enjoyed a vegetarian lunch, leaving deli meats in the fridge, serving homemade jam and apple syrup, and offering a vegetarian croquette instead of a beef croquette.
Reducing meat consumption ranks high on various lists of things you can do for a more sustainable life. But how effective is it? This sparked discussions about sustainability and food at the lunch tables of Quadrant4 and Klictet. This way, we indirectly contributed to a better climate.
At BREEAM-NL, Quadrant4's comprehensive approach and services shine. But what does this process look like in practice? Cathelijn, Marijn, and Dennis gave us a glimpse into their daily work in the field of sustainability and explained some performance goals.
Driven by our own passion, we encourage all parties involved to actively pursue sustainable choices for their real estate development. We advise clients, stakeholders, and management on all opportunities in sustainable construction or renovation. Once all requirements and wishes regarding performance goals are determined, the collaborative design and sketching of the initial architectural forms begin.
Together with the team, we focused on four common performance goals that we consistently recommend and support during our sustainability projects. The components - ecology, waste management, sustainable reuse, and commissioning - were highlighted through fun and informative practical stories. From experience, it was evident that these aspects greatly influenced the forecast and overall scores of the BREEAM-NL system.
The description of WST 05 according to BREEAM-NL reads: "Promoting measures that reduce the effects of extreme weather conditions due to climate change and make the building more robust and 'adaptive' throughout its entire life." We discussed the current threats causing concern and identified impending risks such as extreme waterlogging, heat stress, wind, hail, and storms.
How can we design to stay ahead of climate threats? We work from existing knowledge, keep up with new developments, and use logical reasoning. Reports and recommendations from external advisors serve as the foundation for our designs. Within these guidelines, we check our work on various aspects and strive for the highest achievable design. Common applications include:
In many cases, the same solution can address multiple climate threats simultaneously.
