was also voted one of the Best LIFE Environment Projects 2007/2008 by the EU Directorate-General for the Environment.
At the beginning of 2009, HOCHTIEF began managing and assessing its own projects and those of clients to German Sustainable Building Council standards and submitting them for certification. Halfway into 2009, we have already had four professionals specially trained as auditors to offer this service.
The German Sustainable Building Council is a member of the World Green Building Council, which works to promote sustainable construction and resource-conserving buildings worldwide. Our American subsidiary Turner, No. 1 in US green building according to the Engineering News-Record, is also a long-standing active member of the United States Green Building Council .
Our US subsidiary builds environmentally friendly, energysaving major construction projects certified to the United States Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard. Turner is a pioneer in green building and can boast a total of more than 350 Green Building projects finished in recent years or currently under construction. Our subsidiary completed sustainable contracts worth more than EUR 2.2 billion in 2008 alone. Eco-friendly, resource-conserving buildings accounted for some 40 percent of Turner’s entire order backlog as of January 2009. Of the contracts completed so far, 85 have been awarded LEED certification and a further 131 are in the list of registered green buildings. Turner’s commitment to sustainable construction and to continue building its expertise in this segment is also illustrated by another statistic: More than 1,100 Turner staff have become
LEED Accredited Professionals. No other builder anywhere in the world has such a large pool of LEED experts.
Through our subsidiary Leighton, we construct buildings certified to the Green Star rating in Australia. Demand for contracts undertaken along sustainable lines is growing in this region as elsewhere. Buildings are rated in Australia for environmental design and sustainability performance by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) . Leighton already has 85 accredited auditors for this purpose.
Excellence through focused R&D
As one of the world’s leading construction services providers, every project we do is unique—and we tackle some huge and challenging projects. This demands strong innovating capacity from HOCHTIEF. Almost every contract therefore involves a substantial amount of project-specific research and development (R&D). Most of this project-related innovation comes from R&D work done right on site or in design offices. We frequently also develop custom solutions in terms of technology or materials and logistics.
We are among the international leaders in environmentally friendly construction and consequently set ourselves exacting standards in all we do. HOCHTIEF is continually improving existing construction techniques, materials and processes and developing new ways of saving energy, conserving resources and safeguarding the health of occupants when running buildings. We also constantly add to our capability range with new services geared to enhancing sustainability in our projects.
Among these are the processes and technologies of HOCHTIEF ViCon, a spin-out from one of our innovation projects. In ViCon (Virtual Design and Construction), plans for a project are first created digitally. Systems, costs,