The Costa Rican Chamber of Construction announced the winners of the 12th edition of the Sustainable Construction Award, this year we were awarded in the Company Category, thanks to our integration of sustainability into our business strategy.

The Costa Rican Chamber of Construction announced the winners of the 12th edition of the Sustainable Construction Award last November, which acknowledges the efforts made by companies or people to include sustainability and its three pillars (environmental, social, and economic pillars) into their daily work.

This year we were awarded in the Company Category, thanks to our integration of sustainability into our business strategy, under the ISO 26000 standard, promoting triple-utility actions (environmental, social, and economic) for all our stakeholders.

We invested our time and resources in many efforts for environmental sustainability, which has led us to important certifications such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), ISO 14001, Carbon Neutral, and Ecologic Blue Flag (“Bandera Azul Ecológica,” in Spanish).

The reduction of waste is an issue that we work on through:

• The application of internal policies, projects, and the execution of constant waste reduction campaigns.
• Awareness in saving renewable resources.
• We value the waste disposed of in three central collection centers and are managed directly by our trained staff, located in specific buildings.
• We are an authorized administrator of recoverable waste for our entire business city.
• To carry out correct waste disposal, we have our garbage collection truck, which makes a daily tour of the business city, visiting the garbage containers located at different points, which avoids the accumulation of garbage and the possible generation of waste smells.
• All our ordinary waste is co-processed, which has made it possible to reduce waste in landfills by more than 10,000 kilograms.

What do we do at AFZ to be awarded for sustainable construction?

• We work on energy management from the conception of each of the buildings in the design stage, strategic purchases, and internal maintenance with AFZ’s own interdisciplinary teams.
• Smart operation systems for our air conditioning.
• We take advantage of natural lighting for our building design.
• LEED artificial illumination within our installments is of high efficiency.
• We generate energy for our buildings and EV Charging stations through solar panels.
• Through passive design and thermal comfort in our buildings.
• Use of specialized software for energy management and preventive maintenance of our facilities.
• We follow our corporate value of innovation, providing a comprehensive experience to clients and collaborators during their stay, offering them natural parks with gardens and trees that provide a space for interaction and recreation outside the office facilities, available at any time of the day
• Modern and accessible amenities (gyms, tennis court, soccer field, and athletics track) with technological and efficient applications that improve the experience of our clients and collaborators in our business city.
• We work on an annual training plan in a coordinated manner between the Talent Management team and the leader of each process, in accordance with a review of needs.
• A Program of Attention to Educational Institutions that offers students their first glimpse of a working environment.
• We work with organizations such as Business Alliance for Development (Alianza Empresarial para el Desarrollo, in Spanish) and the Positive Horizon Association (Asociación Horizonte Positivo, in Spanish) in their social causes. 

Since our founding as a business city, we have contributed to the development of Costa Rica. On this occasion, we are very proud of this award, which demonstrates our constant commitment to sustainability, always considering that our business city makes available the infrastructure, technology, and human resources in terms of health and safety to support the community and companies close to the corporate center. We work every day to accomplish the mission of designing, building, and keeping global business communities, through responsible practices and services of international quality.