Rubber flooring from Nora Quality Rubber Flooring Systems met the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ certified requirement for building materials used in the construction of the new head office of Geelen Counterflow in Haelen, NL.

Geelen Counterflow is a leading manufacturer of counterflow dryers and coolers for feed and food products. The company’s new head office in Haelen, NL, which opened in 2015, is ‘the most sustainable office in the world’, having received a 99.94% score in the BREEAM certification system.

A key challenge during the building of the new office was the strict requirement that only ‘Cradle to Cradle’ certified building materials should be used in the project. ‘Cradle to Cradle’ refers to materials that do no harm to the environment and can be re-used at the end of their lifetime.

The new Geelen Counterflow building produces more energy than it consumes, and the design is optimised for employee health and productivity through control of daylight infiltration, air quality and indoor lighting. Healthy building materials such as recyclable carpets, rubber flooring type norament 926 serra and noraplan sentica, tile work, ceilings and cradle-to-cradle glass have been used in the construction and interiors of the head office to meet sustainability objectives.