LEED Certification awarded to the Herbatint Campus

The new Fara Sabina headquarters, hosting the offices and the production facility, have been designed and built to be LEED compliant.

To prove the company’s extensive commitment to ensuring the well-being and health of its employees, of the local community and the environment, the whole campus has been awarded with the Silver LEED Certification, thereby obtaining one of the highest international acknowledgements of environmental sustainability in the building sector.

The international LEED certification protocol (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rates buildings designed and built according to the best standards of sustainability and energy efficiency in the world. It evaluates the environmental performance of buildings throughout their whole service life based on an exhaustive and well-organised standard.

Site

We have designed and built all site areas to ensure they are functional to activities and with the utmost attention on the quality of work and the efficiency of processes.

Sustainable innovation has been incorporated in the design, materials, equipment and work of personnel. This operation ensures the building uses less energy for heating, air conditioning and lighting compared to a common industrial building.

Energy

The first tangible action was to install a solar panels system on the roof, enough to meet all the energy requirementsof the office block. We also installed cutting-edge air-conditioning systems that assure the highest level of efficiency and, at the same time, the lowest consumption (class A+). We also put in place LED-only lighting systems, integrating technology that is able to adapt the lighting level and timing of the air-conditioning systems to actual needs only. Furthermore, we ensured all the energy used on site is 100% green. This means that the energy needs of Herbatint’s new headquarters for buildings as well as processes are entirely covered by certified renewable sources, wind power and solar energy.

Water

In designing and installing the waterworks of Herbatint’s headquarters, we committed to reducing the use of water, thereby helping save resources: Toilets and taps are fitted with flow control systems to minimise water consumption, while assuring the premises are safe and clean. Moreover, a rainwater collecting system has been designed and made, which is used to irrigate the garden areas around the facility.

Air

To support the well-being of users and ensure they enjoy better health and better productivity, we maximised the quality of the indoor environment, assuring comfortable temperatures by means of the air-conditioning systems and choosing auxiliary building materials with a low VOC (volatile organic compounds) content. Moreover, all the furniture of the headquarters (tables, desks and chairs) have a high percentage of recycled materials.

Wellbeing

As a result, this also means a more rewarding experience for visitors at the headquarters, who are pleasantly impressed with the temperature, neatness and absence of emissions, as well as happy and relaxed employees.

The most important advantage is certainly the one involving people. It is a well-known fact that people who work in green buildings have better health and are more productive, as this kind of building provides better quality indoor air and lighting 1 . That is why we have minimised the impact in the agricultural area where our facility was built with sustainable design and careful management of the natural resources.

We have attained this important milestone thanks to our partnership with Nativa Architecture, a B Corp like us and a consultant for the sustainable renovation of buildings.

However, our goal goes beyond obtaining the LEED certification: we want to be a model for all companies, industrial facilities, either new or existing ones, by inviting our partners, peers and suppliers to ask themselves what impact their business is having.