First Balfour’s corporate office along the West Service Road in Sucat, Parañaque was recently awarded by the Philippine Green Building Council (PhilGBC) as its first Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence (BERDE)-certified building in design.
BERDE, the Philippines’ rating system for green buildings, is a certification, monitoring and verification scheme designed by PhilGBC to facilitate greener building and measure how much above and beyond a building performs in terms of existing environmental regulations and standards. Similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design in the US, BERDE is a rating tool established to advocate sustainable design and building initiatives in the country.
One of the earlier perspectives of the new building design
“The trend nowadays is green building, and we should be able to fully understand its implications on our future building designs so that we, as contractors, can adapt to these changes,” said First Balfour Business Development Group head Levi Agoncillo.
Then and now: view of the parking area from 2/F Building 1
With Agoncillo’s supervision, Certified BERDE Professionals Russell Javier of the Business Development Group and Leslie Jacinto of the Environment, Safety and Health department were among the prime movers for the corporate office’s BERDE certification.
The lead evaluators from TÜV Rheinland, a third-party professional certification body, lauded the one-hectare, two-building facility for its green building features such as the employment of rain-harvesting technology and the use of water- and energy- saving fixtures.
