Press Releases 2009

January 23, 2009

Public private partnerships a model of success: Bilfinger Berger awarded German seal of approval for sustainable construction

Three projects carried out by Bilfinger Berger have been awarded the German seal of approval of sustainable construction. The regional administration building in Hanover, a public private partnership (PPP) project, received the medal in gold, the center of justice in Chemnitz, another PPP project, was awarded bronze. The Laim290 office building in Munich, which was built for Vivico, received a silver medal. Bilfinger Berger thus assumes a prominent position among the first 16 projects to be awarded the seal of approval.

With the introduction of this seal of approval, the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs and the German Sustainable Building Society have created a widely recognized catalogue of criteria for the economic, ecological, urbanistic and technically functional quality of public and private buildings. “Environmental protection is, to a great extent, a construction responsibility,” said Professor Hans Helmut Schetter, Member of the Executive Board at Bilfinger Berger. “The construction industry is in a position to improve sustainability in a wide variety of ways, in both new projects and existing buildings. Savings potential in the real-estate sector is much greater than in road traffic, for example.”

Taking a holistic view of design, construction and operating costs is the prerequisite for sustainable solutions. In Germany, Bilfinger Berger is already developing about a third of all projects together with its clients in accordance with a comprehensive concept which takes every phase in the lifecycle of a property into consideration. “Not only private clients are opening up to this approach, the public sector is also showing increased willingness to explore such models. In every project carried out as a public private partnership, the optimization of the entire lifecycle is the focus of the competition”, emphasizes Hans Helmut Schetter.