Green Office Competition will be organized in 2008 again. Any company, office or institution where office work takes place could enter the competition organized with an exhibition. The prize may be applied for in Hungary for four years by offices that have already been managed in an environment- and human-friendly way as well as those that intend to change into green office management. Green buildings, green offices, passive houses, environmental consciousness – key words that we hear more and more frequently. Expert for Colliers Real Estate Agency Rémi Couture helps us find our way amongst these concepts.

When do we talk about an environment friendly office? The target of the operation of an environment friendly office may be stated as minimizing the negative environmental effects of our office activities by the possible most efficient utilization of resources and reduction of wastes. A frequently quoted example of the measurement of the effects of office environment is the piece of data that a workstation constituting one computer and one screen left on during the nights will be responsible for 1 ton of carbon-dioxide emission annually, while the carbon-dioxide emission of Hungary is approximately 60-70 millions tons per year.

By choosing energy saving and intelligent office equipments, optimizing paper-, energy- and water consumption, considering aspects of environmental protection in purchasing stationery, office supplies and cleaning agents, carefully selecting office furniture and optimizing the quality of air in our office we can achieve significant financial savings as well as increase work efficiency of our staff and workers. Due to saving materials the initial investments spent on turning the office green may return in short or middle terms.

Green building – as a qualification criterion – essentially means that we talk about a well manageable building. The aim is not to cause unnecessary extra costs for the developer; it is not always about utilizing alternative sources of energy, but much more about thinking of the practical issues of the management of the building from an environment conscious perspective that are relevant in terms of economic operation and quality of life and work in case of a category “A” office building. On the basis of the LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System introduced in the USA there are four levels of green buildings from certified, through silver and gold to platinum certificate. The latter may be received by the owner of a building if individual energy production and supply is actually solved. This however is considered rather as a prestige investment that may be well exploited from a PR perspective. Nevertheless basic and silver certificates may easily be achieved in case of most buildings with relatively little development.

Optimizing operation costs is of course still a primary aspect, since it is important for the investors to invest their money into a well manageable real estate while the opportunity of reducing service costs belonging to the rent by 15-17% per square meter is an essential issue for the tenants.

The issue of passive houses is also closely related to environmental consciousness and saving energy. We talk about a passive house if the energy consumption of the building does not exceed 15 kWh/m2/year. The ready building may obtain energy from several different sources. These may be the heat produced by humans, the heat produced by electronic appliances, the heat penetrating the building through precisely oriented windows and the energy of the Earth points out the study by Isoteq Magyarország Kft. In order to gain the energy of the Earth we need a so called ground collectors. The ventilation system takes in fresh air through this ground collector. We need to know that the temperature of the ground 1-1.5 meter below the surface is approximately constant 6-9 °C independently of seasons and time of the day. In order to exploit this feature an approximately 35 meter long pipe the diameter of which is 200 mm has to be laid in the ground. The pre-heating (or pre-cooling in certain cases) of the fresh intake air takes place this way. The ventilation system needs to be equipped with a heat regenerator (fresh air has to be led through a heat exchanger that transfers the heat of the outlet air to the fresh inlet air). In order to achieve the desired effect the efficiency of this equipment has to be at least 80%. Leading the air under the ground for several meters has an other advantage, namely that the heat exchanger equipment can not freeze in therefore we do not have to spend extra energy to prevent icing. The question whether the advantage made by saving energy on heating is lost on the operation of the ventilation system often arises. Today’s modern equipments consume approximately 10% of the energy saved therefore the advantage is not lost.

Green Office Competition will be organized again in 2008 and we will be informed at the exhibition and press event whether domestic offices, office buildings and real estate developers are becoming more environment conscious.