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Corporate Communication for architecture project • Bern
Strategically moving towards net zero
Sustainability has become a major intergenerational concern. The word itself highlights how we should be supporting one another as a society, thinking about the long-term management of our economy and taking special care of our environment and resources in the process. Switzerland’s Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (BBL), the contracting authority of Building D, is following a jointly defined approach – developed under the leadership of Vera Kämpfen.
By Stephanie Ringel
Photograph by Rolf Siegenthaler
Since the work of the second construction phase started, we have been documenting the construction phases and various professions involved in them on this project website: www.verwaltungszentrum-guisanplatz.ch The reports and conversations exemplify where and how sustainability is actually being implemented on the construction site.
If we take a step back, we see clearly that the building projects are embedded in complex, long-term goals. In June 2021, the Swiss Federal Council defined the 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy (i.e. the 2030 SDS) with a concomitant action plan. It specifies the guidelines for sustainable development as an important requirement for all policy areas of the federation. It managed to structure to a huge field of topics and raise awareness of the ability of civil society, businesses, the financial market, and the fields of education, research and innovation to help understand and drive forwards the basic conditions for sustainable development.
The BBL wants to set an example
The federal administration has to integrate the principles of the SNE 2030 into its planning and budgeting processes: ‘The federation is consistently applying the principles of sustainable development to its own activities. The federation is procuring products, services and buildings that will do justice to the high economic, environmental and social requirements during their entire life cycle.’
The Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (BBL) is thus especially challenged in this regard. As a central entity of the federation, it has the task of providing the civilian federal administration with buildings and is in charge of their planning, construction, maintenance and operation. In addition to administrative buildings, the office’s portfolio includes embassies, museums, customs facilities, research institutions, sports facilities, historic buildings, government buildings and courthouses as well as the MeteoSwiss measuring fields and radio antennae. The best-known building of the mix is the Parliament Building in Bern.
The property portfolio for the civilian federal administration comprises approximately 1,800 sites as well as 3,000 buildings and properties with 40,000 office work places. Its most significant building projects in recent years include the conversion and renovation of federal buildings like the first stage of the administrative building on Guisanplatz 1 in Bern, the administrative centre in Zollikofen, the expansion and renovation of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich as well as embassies all over the world. The new development of Building D follows this series of federal buildings that were built in an exemplary, partner-focused and sustainable way.
The BBL adopted its own initial Sustainability Strategie in 2019; it is being updated in line with the Federal Council’s 2021/2022 strategy. Since 1 September 2022, the office has had its own Sustainability Organisational Unit headed by Vera Kämpfen. She has an interdisciplinary master’s degree in Sustainable Development and a PhD in sustainability research. She describes her role as ‘promoting sustainability in all activities of the BBL’.
Integrating sustainability across the board
‘Moving towards a circular economy and reducing damage to the environment are huge challenges. We have to be able to implement our net-zero targets in the coming years’, Kämpfen says. Simply put, net zero means climate neutrality. This is achieved when humankind removes the same amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as it emits into the atmosphere from other activities. Many questions about how we can achieve that are still unanswered.
Kämpfen is working closely with the BBL’s leadership as well as specialists from all the BBL’s areas of operations. ‘In order to update the sustainability strategy, we compiled various sustainability aspects in-house and structured them in a matrix’. The result of this are the 16 strategic focus areas – including reducing environmental damages as well as promoting a circular economy, biodiversity, life cycle costs, communication and stakeholder engagement. They are published in the sustainability strategy as well as in the Sustainability Report of the BBL with the title ‘Insights into the Future’.
‘The report is a sort of barometer and illustrates which measures BBL is taking and where there is a need for more action’, Kämpfen explains. ‘It shows us where we stand’. The sustainability report is meant to inform the Parliament and the Federal Council, BBL employees, the rest of the federal administration as well as businesses and the wider public. Starting this year, each year the sustainability report will be presenting which milestones the BBL has achieved in the implementation of its sustainability strategy. ‘This will not only give us a shared mission, but a shared direction and voice’, Kämpfen says. The BBL will be integrating sustainability into its operational processes and guidelines across the board. Each action will have to comply with the defined criteria. In the case of building projects, that ranges from competitive procurement bids to the building materials used; from installing roof-top solar panels to acquiring furniture with circularity in mind.
In order to apply the focus areas of the BBL’s sustainability strategy for building projects without decoupling them from other policies, the BBL is integrating the Swiss Sustainable Building Standard for Structural Engineering (SNBS Hochbau) into its own catalogue of specifications. This instrument, recognized all over Switzerland, is designed for Swiss building culture, considering the relevant Swiss norms, guidelines and sustainability standards with regard to the planning phases of engineers and architects, and dividing them into the impact areas of economy, society and environment.
A proud target: platinum certification
With Building D, the aim is to achieve the highest level of SNBS Hochbau certification: platinum. Earning the ‘Minergie-P’ certification is also a goal. In order to achieve that, specialists will be accompanying the building project and keeping records of the required criteria that are met.
The structure of Building D, for example, is designed to be compact, which reduces the implementation and maintenance costs on the one hand and overall energy consumption on the other. There must be a separation of systems in the load-bearing structure, building envelope and interior fittings as well as easy accessibility to the building installations (ventilation, sanitation) in order to ensure that building parts can be maintained, repaired, dissembled and replaced once their life cycle has ended.
Energy production is conceived as a complex system. Heat will be obtained underground via an earth probe field and used for the heat pump heating system, which will be powered in part by electricity generated from the solar panels on the building’s roof. The well-insulated building envelope guarantees lower thermal energy consumption.
Communication and stakeholder engagement
One of the focuses of the sustainability strategy is the communication and engagement with target and stakeholder groups. The BBL is communicating the sustainable measures it is taking to its employees, politicians and the public, actively involving the relevant target groups and other interested parties. Constructive reporting, personal exchange, media work and documenting are included. Since the start of the Building D project, the BBL has established regular meetings and information events. The future users of the building, representatives from the immediate neighbouring area of Guisanplatz 1 and neighbourhood representatives meet on appointed days. These meetings are extremely valuable as they facilitate a transparent exchange – and, in doing so, consider the need for shared solutions, the durable quality of the building and the acceptance of its users.