Skanska is planning to develop its first climate-neutral office in the CEE region by using structural timber. Construction of the 30,000 sqm office building, which will be built on 13,000 sqm of land on Radlicka Street in Prague’s 5th district, will get underway in 2023. It will be Skanska’s third project in the district, having previous developed Riverview and Five, and the company is also planning to build a residential project there. “To achieve our goal of a climate-neutral building, besides other highly efficient and sustainable solutions, we are going to replace structural elements from concrete to timber,” says Alexandra Tomaskova, Executive Vice President Operations Hungary & Czech Republic at Skanska Commercial Development Europe. “Wood has amazing qualities. One of the best, especially in the current context of accelerating climate change, is the fact that the material has a very low carbon footprint. Wood not only stores CO2, it can also be re-used when the lifecycle of the building is over. The use of wood is a part of an ongoing natural lifecycle,” she says. Skanska has made a global commitment through a climate target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, with a 50 percent reduction by 2030.
