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We develop blue, green and safely

We are seeing a growing social awareness of the need to keep our planet liveable. Heijmans has also stated its firm ambition in this respect: from 2030, all our interventions will lead to the improvement of nature and a climate-proof Netherlands. Our starting point is to cooperate with the natural system as much as we can. This is how we create a healthy living environment; the core of Heijmans’ strategy.

We are well aware of the importance of water and soil. This is why we treat them with care and move with local natural systems, both in area developments and housing construction, as well as in Non-residential and infrastructure projects. Climate adaptation is a matter of customisation. It is about retaining, storing, infiltrating and reusing water. In all cases, we aim to provide a future-proof living environment that can safely accommodate the extremes of the changing climate.

We are not working on a nature-inclusive, climate-adaptive living environment alone. We constantly exchange knowledge and expertise with ambitious organisations and knowledge institutions, such as Naturalis, NL Greenlabel, The Pollinators and the national forestry commission (Staatsbosbeheer).

For Heijmans, the climate scenarios published by Dutch weather bureau KNMI underline the need to work together on circular water management in the built environment. This requires an integrated view on water and new ways of cooperation with various parties. Partly for this reason, Heijmans became the first nationwide construction company to join the WaterBank platform in October 2023. This cooperative knowledge and network organisation wants to realise a new water balance, among other things by using residual water more intelligently. Heijmans focuses, among other things, on collecting and reusing rainwater. We take this into account at an early stage when designing our homes and buildings. Treating waste water locally is also one of the developments on this front.

Healthy soil

Healthy soil is fundamental to climate adaptation and nature-inclusive working. This is why we have worked in various ways to create greater awareness of this within Heijmans and also to translate this idea into concrete design principles and working methods. The following are examples of this approach:

  • A joint exploration with Wageningen University & Research of the principles underlying healthy soil.

  • Developing Sustainable Design Principles (SDPs) aimed, among other things, at maintaining and creating healthy soil.

  • Increasing internal awareness through a collaboration with the makers of the ‘Onder het maaiveld’ (below ground level) documentary. The makers produced a Heijmans edition of this film and we used it to create awareness about the importance of and our impact on healthy soil.

(Smart) Monitoring biodiversity

In collaboration with the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, we are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to measure the biodiversity actually present on the construction site of the Vijfsluizen project in Vlaardingen. Using AI, we monitor biodiversity on the project’s construction site based on image and sound recognition. We can then use this data to provide insight into the impact of our activities, as well as the impact of any measures we take. Heijmans sees the use of AI as an important development, partly because AI can contribute to a uniform way of monitoring biodiversity and partly because it can potentially also be applied on a large scale.

At the Parijsch project in Culemborg in 2023, we monitored the effectiveness of various nature-related measures. This produced new insights into the effectiveness of fauna facilities for various species in new buildings. We will use these insights as we continue to develop nature-inclusive measures.

Area developments

Area developments often involve major interventions in infrastructure, landscape and the environment. Together, Infra and Property Development can offer the entire process, from initiative to management. Working with NL Greenlabel and its system is now fully integrated into our area development processes. This leads to major, measurable steps towards a sustainable and healthy living environment. In the initial phase of an area development, Heijmans establishes the ambition for the project with its partners and with NL Greenlabel using a pre-screening tool. In the design phase, an NL Greenlabel assessor tests whether the ambition is actually included in the final design. Finally, after delivery, this check is performed again, leading to a final score for the project site.

NL Greenlabel’s label methods examine eight main themes to determine how sustainable a development is. These themes are: Design, Realisation & Management, Products & Materialisation, Energy & Climate, Soil & Water, Biodiversity, People & Environment and Assurance. For each theme, a project can score points on three components, which must be demonstrated by Heijmans. Adding up all these points results in a score between A and G, with Heijmans always aiming for a score of A or B for the public areas of a project.

Reducing the impact on the environment

By building in an industrial scale, we reduce the impact of building sites on nature. In the past, an area was completely cleared in preparation for construction, but now we can take a different approach, devoting much more attention to the preservation and enrichment of existing nature. As more houses are produced off-site in the production plant, less equipment and fewer construction movements are needed on the building site. When building timber-frame houses, we can also use electric cranes as a result of the large weight savings. To inspire the residents of the timber-frame Horizon houses, we designed five themed gardens with a Garden Label A, one of NL Greenlabel’s labels. Once the project is completed, these green gardens make the neighbourhood pleasant to live in.

Growing attention

At Infra, too, we are seeing clients paying increasing attention to climate adaptation and nature inclusiveness. Thanks in part to our knowledge in this area, last year Infra won new framework contracts with TenneT and Vitens, among others. On the other hand, the degree of priority and attention given to climate adaptation and nature inclusiveness varies widely, as does the degree to which clients have a clear focus on their ambitions and the extent to which they are able to translate these ambitions into infrastructure assignments for the municipality or province in question. This results in a variety of issues regarding climate-adaptive solutions, sustainable implementation and alternatives, and solutions related to the energy challenge. Our knowledge and experience have helped us to successfully acquire and realise some wonderful projects, from the redevelopment of residential areas to making business parks more sustainable.

Nature ladder

Heijmans and Dura Vermeer teamed up to develop the Nature Ladder. The Nature Ladder is an instrument that provides employees in the infrastructure sector with tools to ensure more biodiversity in projects. All the green spaces around our railways, waterways and motorways make up the largest nature area in the Netherlands, which is largely managed by construction companies. Looking at it from this perspective, the infrastructure sector plays a major role in promoting biodiversity in the Netherlands and making the country climate-proof. The Nature Ladder makes it possible to set concrete targets for nature-inclusive and climate-conscious construction. This helps to keep our green-blue ambitions sharp throughout the entire process, from design to realisation. In 2023, Heijmans Infra successfully applied the Nature Ladder in 15 projects. In those projects, we identified opportunities for climate adaptation and biodiversity and discussed these with clients. In several cases, this led to the implementation of these opportunities in the project.

We are currently working on version 2.0 of the Nature Ladder, which will be made available online for the entire sector. In this way, we are taking concrete action on our vision that successful assurance of climate adaptation and biodiversity can only be achieved together with all the stakeholders in the infrastructure sector.

Tom van de Beek

“Biodiversity in the Netherlands has declined by 75% over the past century. We call attention to this, by making that major issue small and tangible. The aim is to create a bottom-up movement of citizens and companies taking up the cause of bees. The built environment is very important when you talk about pollinators. You can look at what you can add to the existing environment afterwards, but it is even more interesting to look at new buildings. That is where you can take into account a healthy environment for all kinds of life - humans as well as pollinators - before you even start a project.”