Smart Fruit Hub apparently achieved ‘Outstanding’ score of 91.04 per cent, making it ‘most sustainable’ food production facility in Netherlands
A new packhouse and logistics centre owned by Dutch cooperative FruitMasters has been selected as a finalist in this year’s Breeam Awards.
The Smart Fruit Hub, in Geldermalsen to the east of Rotterdam, was nominated in the New Construction Project category by the awards panel.
Certification scheme Breeam, which stands for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, operates what is one of the most prestigious international sustainability prizes.
It is widely regarded as the world’s leading schemes for assessing and certifying the integral a construction’s sustainability.
The 35,180m² Smart Fruit Hub was built on a site where FruitMasters has operated for more than 120 years, one where generations of growers have brought their fruit to auction.
With no room to expand outward, the group decided to focus on what it terms ‘densification’.
It has 2,812 solar panels generating 1.36mn kWh per year, a system capable of purifying 15,000 litres of water per hour – and therefore reducing consumption by more than 30 per cent – and a rainwater collection system that stores 1,500 m³ beneath the building.
In addition, more than 94 per cent of its construction waste was reportedly recycled.
No wonder then that Breeam have it an ‘Outstanding’ score of 91.04 per cent, which apparently makes it the most sustainable food production facility in the Netherlands.
Maartje Vullings, CSR officer at FruitMasters commented: “This nomination feels like a wonderful recognition of what sustainable transformation truly means: taking a historic site and turning it into a future-proof hub.
“Sustainability is not an added extra, it is the new standard. This is a recognition of the collective commitment of so many colleagues and partners who work on this with conviction every day.”
