Prologis’ leap towards Circular Warehouses

Prologis is one of the leading sustainable real estate companies in the world. An important new aspect of their work in the sustainable use of construction materials is circularity. Everything within the brand new Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 - partly rented by Tarkett – is cradle-to-cradle (C2C). This Distribution Center is constructed with 20 to 30% circular, biobased or C2C materials. Everything has been created with circularity in mind: easy to dismantle and reuse, supported by a material passport. This project is the integrated approach of three components: BREEAM, WELL and, of course, circularity.

26,000 square meters plot
23,500 square meters of logistics space
2,000 square meters of mezzanine
600 square meters of office
24 docks

Data as of March 31, 2020, for land owned and under option, as well as assets the company owned or had investments in, on a wholly owned basis or through co-investment ventures, properties and development projects.

Circular Toolbox

Together with partners DoepelStrijkers and M3E, Prologis developed a new way of working for all warehouse construction from this point on. The secret? The Circular Toolbox. The toolbox explains the difference between circularity, cradle-to-cradle and degradable resources and what a Material Passport entails. It also explains how these practices can be implemented. This way of working makes Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 a prime example of how you can use circularity in your building. Circular eyecatchers? With the help of Erik Koremans (New Horizon) the separation walls are a one-on-one reutilization of materials that come from an old dental office. The floors are made from old fishing nets and calsium which is a waste product from the nearby water treatment facility. The starting point for this project was the question: where can we make the difference today? It made Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 the new standard for circular building.

Project Overview

In May 2020, Prologis delivered a partly built-to-suit, partly speculative distribution center of approximately 26,000 (unit A and B) square meters for Tarkett in the Netherlands. This circular project was extra special because of the speed in which it was developed. The Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 project was initiated in April 2019 as merely a sketch drawing and was delivered at the beginning of May 2020. BREEAM, WELL and Circular standards were implemented inside and out.

Location

Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 is located in one of the fastest growing logistic regions of the Netherlands, nearby hotspots like Rotterdam and Antwerp (Belgium). The warehouse measures approximately 26,000 square meters.

Use by Tarkett

The current tenant of the Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 Unit A is Tarkett (formerly DESSO), a leading brand in sustainable and innovative carpet flooring and well-known for their gold certificated carpets. When Tarkett discovered that they could rent a circular property, they saw it as a huge bonus. It perfectly fit with their sustainability goals.

Sustainability

In terms of sustainability, the Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 scores extremely high. It lives up to the BREEAM and the WELL building standards, but also takes major steps towards circularity. The integration of all three systems marks Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3 as one of the best examples in the market.

Well-being

Focusing on the well-being of the employees in distribution centers is fully in line with Prologis’ sustainability and business goals. With the ambition to raise the standards for logistics buildings to an even higher level, Prologis firmly believes in a more human-centric approach in building. To really make a difference.

Interview with DoepelStrijkers: Riekie Brokking

Riekie Brokking is Interior Architect at the internationally acclaimed design studio DoepelStrijkers. She is accustomed to ‘moving fully against the current'. This became especially clear while she worked on the realization of the completely circular distribution center together with M3E and Prologis. When it comes to circularity you can only determine the final product during the process itself. It is a matter of rethinking, or ‘omdenken’ in Dutch. And daring to make a statement.

Interview with M3E: Lothar Wijnand

Lothar Wijnand is Advisor and Co-owner at M3E, a sustainable building consulting firm in Rotterdam. He is a consultant who thoroughly knows the market, while his partner at M3E focuses on installation-technical advice. Lothar, as a trained structural engineer, focuses on all kinds of quality marks and the application for subsidies. Additionally, M3E aadvises customers how to get thesubsidy and meet the conditions. M3E offers it all.

Interview with Tarkett: Lodewijk van der Zanden

Lodewijk van der Zanden is Purchasing Manager for the carpet division of Tarkett in Waalwijk. Next to his daily duties he also serves as the Project Manager to complete the circular property Prologis Park Waalwijk DC3. Van der Zanden and his colleagues praise the collaboration with Prologis. Their circular property seamlessly fit with the vision of Tarkett - formerly DESSO - as a global founder of a closed loop process of carpet tiles.