The CubeHouse: our new sustainable headquarters
Sustainability is at the heart of our purpose at BNP Paribas The Netherlands. As a workplace, the CubeHouse, our new headquarters in the Netherlands, will help us deliver on our sustainable promise. The CubeHouse is an extraordinary structure with a remarkable sustainability story. Read on to learn more about how our new home delivers on its clean, green, and healthy promise. You can remember it by the words that start with a ‘W’.
WOOD
The CubeHouse boasts a unique hybrid-timber construction, making it the first of its kind in the Amsterdam Zuidas. The building’s frame is built primarily using recycled and biobased materials, mainly timber originating from sustainably managed forests. This not only reduces the building’s carbon footprint but also stores up to 9,000 tons of CO2, equivalent to the emissions from the electricity consumption of 10,271 households in one year.
The use of natural and biobased materials extends beyond the timber frame, with 75% of the building’s structure composed of these materials. The public garden above the ground floor is filled with trees, groundcover, and more – a unique natural oasis in the Zuidas. The garden is accessible to employees and visitors and creates a connection between users and nature, promoting biodiversity and wellbeing.
Check out this video about the making of the building’s wooden structure and the company behind the pressed timber frame.
WATER
The CubeHouse is designed with water stewardship in mind. The building features a gray water reuse system, which collects and treats rainwater for non-potable (drinking) uses such as flushing toilets.
This system reduces water waste and promotes sustainability. Additionally, the building is “rainproof,” meaning it can handle peak downpours of up to 60 mm per hour. The public garden also plays a role in water management, storing large amounts of water after heavy rainfall and ensuring the building remains cool when needed.
WARMTH
The CubeHouse is designed to be energy-efficient, with 80% of its energy demand (for heating, cooling, and more) generated sustainably through PV-panels on the roofs and parts of the facade. The Breathe Spaces, located on the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors, provide a comfortable environment for employees to relax and socialize, while also connecting the indoors and outdoors (read more about them below).
Finally, having an office that’s located in a place that’s easy to reach by bike and public transport fits squarely in our strategy to support the BNP Paribas group’s global ambition to further minimize our CO₂ emissions and become a Green Company for Employees.
WELLBEING
The CubeHouse is designed with wellbeing in mind, featuring biophilic Breathe Spaces that combine the best of both indoor and outdoor environments. These unique spaces, located on the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors, are designed to connect the interior office spaces with the outdoors, providing an abundance of natural daylight and fresh air. The Breathe Spaces incorporate lush greenery and flora, blurring the lines between inside and outside, and creating a peaceful oasis for employees to relax, socialize, and recharge. By bringing the outdoors in, these spaces promote a sense of calm and wellbeing, while also fostering creativity and productivity.
The building is also designed to achieve a WELL-Gold indoor environment rating, guaranteeing high indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and occupant wellbeing. The public garden, with its lush greenery and biodiversity-boosting flora and fauna, provides an additional peaceful oasis for employees and visitors to enjoy.
WELCOME
Having a positive impact on our community is an important dimension of our sustainability strategy in the Netherlands. We achieve that through philanthropy, partnerships, volunteering, and other CSR activities. In our new building, we will do so together with the CubeHouse’s owner, a.s.r. real estate, our co-tenant Arcadis, and future tenants by opening part of the ground floor to activities that bring the community together.
This part of the floor will be programmed by Use/space, a company specialized in managing such community spaces. In this way, the ground floor will strike a balance between a corporate head office reception and a social community space.
WORLDCLASS
The CubeHouse is designed to meet the highest sustainability standards, aiming to achieve BREEAM Excellent certification and a WELL-Gold indoor environment rating. The building’s unique hybrid-timber construction, combined with its energy-efficient design and sustainable materials, make it a world-class example of sustainable architecture. Notably, the CubeHouse is being developed as a “Paris-proof” building, meaning it is designed to meet the energy demand reduction targets required to support a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, as outlined in the Paris Agreement. This ensures that the building is not only sustainable today but also future-proofed to meet the stringent energy efficiency standards of tomorrow.
The decision to move our Netherlands headquarters to the highly sustainable CubeHouse aligns fully with the BNP Paribas Green Buildings program. The Group’s program guides and coordinates the Environmental and Energy Policy of the Group’s Buildings. It aims to reduce energy and water consumption, promote the circular economy, and promote sustainable mobility in our agencies, office buildings, and Datacenters.
From the 1st of May our new address for the Amsterdam based offices is:
Parnassusweg 789, 1082 LZ Amsterdam.