(Photo: Unilever’s North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Credit: Unilever)
Unilever North America’s redeveloped headquarters building in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, just received LEED Platinum certification from the US Green Building Council. In addition, the building was named LEED Commercial Project of the Year by the USGBC in New Jersey.
The LEED certification process assesses buildings across several categories such as location and transportation, sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality, Unilever North America noted.
“During the building phase, 75% of the construction materials were diverted from landfill,” the company said. “A shuttle service from New York City, Hoboken, and Jersey City has supported a 40% reduction in individual cars.”
Workplace strategists and designers from Perkins+Will collaborated with Unilever on the company’s new headquarters. Their design, called the Marketplace, entailed retrofitting, renovating, and repositioning the existing corporate campus. Their 325,000-square-foot renovation included the building interiors.
“The efficient building achieved a 41% reduction in square footage while being able to house more employees, which means less resources are needed to light and climate control the building,” according to Unilever North America.
Cushman & Wakefield’s real estate experts worked on project management, and devised a sustainability strategy with developers EDGE Technologies and Normandy Real Estate Partners that reduced the headquarters’ energy cost to offset the overall cost of occupancy.
This certification comes on the heels of HVAC, refrigeration, fire, security and building automation technologies company Carrier’s announcement that its world headquarters had become the first commercial building in Florida to earn LEED Platinum v4 certification. President Bob McDonough said the UTC Center for Intelligent Buildings was designed to push the boundaries of sustainable building design.