At Davos, Building a Green Buzz
Conrad van Oostrom, a Dutch entrepreneur who built his startup into the Netherlands’ most successful real estate development company, had his light bulb moment when he was invited
to a breakfast on climate change with former U.S. Vice-President and environmental guru Al Gore in Amsterdam in the summer of 2006.
The future is green, decided van Oostrom, chief executive and founder of OVG, a 10-year-old Rotterdam company specializing in office buildings, with 2007 revenues of $651 million. The host of the breakfast, Peter Bakker, chief executive officer of global express delivery giant TNT (TNT.AS), came to the same conclusion.
Bakker decided to replace six of the company’s office buildings in the Netherlands—including TNT’s headquarters—with new energy-conserving buildings representing 70,000 square meters (more than 750,000 square feet) of new office space. After going out to competitive bid, in December TNT announced it had awarded the contract to OVG. One reason: OVG is harnessing technology to convert its green designs into real buildings more quickly.
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