MEAG´s Cologne Oval Office earns certificate for sustainable operation in facility management

The Cologne Oval Office complex has been awarded the certificate GEFMA 160 – Sustainability in Facility Management – for its sustainable operation of the buildings. The sustainability label was presented to the representative of the property’s owner, MEAG, asset manager of Munich Re and ERGO, by the auditors from Apleona HSG Facility Management today at the Expo Real trade fair in Munich.

As part of the certification process, all processes for managing the building were examined in terms of their sustainability, quality and efficiency. To do so, all key documents and processes for operations were recorded digitally and analyzed, for example in the areas of energy and water management, usage costs, user satisfaction, occupational safety, procurement and legal compliance, as well as the quality of the FM services offered. For the first time, the five-month auditing process was performed completely digitally using the SustainFM app developed by the industry association GEFMA and was therefore particularly fast and efficient.

In the sustainability certification process, the Cologne Oval Office, which has more than 30,000 square meters of office space and is used by 36 companies with 1,600 employees as tenants, achieved particularly good results for its energy management, building safety, operating strategy and security. The building, which is operated by Apleona HSG Facility Management, scored well here due to its use of Rhine water to cool the building, continuous energy monitoring and the resulting savings on consumption as well as its very good equipment and quality for building safety, among other factors. Optimization measures were presented by the auditors from Apleona for operations in the areas of water management and technical facility management.

Otto Kajetan Weixler, COO of Apleona and CEO of GEFMA, comments: “Sustainable management of buildings is one of the key tasks in facility management, particularly in view of the climate targets and the associated standards for properties’ ecological footprint. With this certification of sustainable operation of its buildings, MEAG is taking on a pioneering role in the real estate industry together with other major portfolio holders such as Deutsche Bank, IBM, and BASF.”

Apleona advises owners and operators of buildings of all usage types on sustainability certification. Throughout Germany, several well-known buildings have already been certified in line with the GEFMA 160 standard, including the Deutsche Bank Twin Towers, the Commerzbank Arena, and the new BASF building on the south bank of the Rhine.

With the SustainFM app, users, owners and service providers can test their properties in relation to the guidelines for sustainable building operation in a quick check. The app is available free of charge in all the main app stores.