Hyllie Terrass is climate-neutral office building in Malmö, Sweden, developed by SKANSKA. The project is a part of Sweden's Green Building Council's pilot study on NollCO2 certification, where UPB has offered its expertise in the most efficient emission reduction strategies for concrete and steel structures.

NollCO2 certification means that over the lifetime of the building there will not be any extra CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. This certification covers full lifecycle: design stage, construction stage and operational stage, including everything from manufacturing and transportation of building structures to everyday life in the building after it is finished, for example, recycling, innovative energy solutions and other aspects.

Strict emission goals must be met to achieve NollCO2 certification. To achieve the set targets, UPB worked closely with SKANSKA from early project stages to discuss possible options regarding the overall CO2 emissions of the building – mainly on the concrete and steel structures.

UPB experts calculated embodied CO2 for all parts of the project – from raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, assembly until the end of life and disassembly, and recalculated the embodied CO2 for different possible options for emission reduction. Results were thoroughly analyzed to find the parts of the project and the best emission reduction strategies that could lead to the most efficient use of resources for the reduction in embodied CO2.  

UPB was able to provide solutions for possible improvements in design, manufacturing, and logistics. The analysis lead to the following actions that were taken to reduce the embodied CO2 for the concrete and steel structures:

• Replacement of CEM I cement by Miljocement which has up to 30% of ordinary Portland cement in the mix replaced by slag and/or other cement replacement materials.
• Innovative use of cement replacement materials in the outer layer of exterior walls.
• Use of steel, for steel structures as well as reinforcement for prefab elements, manufactured with cutting edge technology and higher degree of renewable energy used for the manufacturing process which lead to a significant reduction of the embodied CO2 in the steel structures of the building.
• High scrap content in steel details, wires, reinforcement and steel constructions
• Further optimization of the manufacturing process of prefab elements.
• Careful selection of steel suppliers
• Green Energy is supplied to all UPB group companies and it is confirmed by POWERED BY GREEN certificate - electricity generated from 100% renewable sources in Latvia.

This resulted in:

• Pre-verification status for NollCO2 certification.
• Overall projected reduction of the embodied CO2 of prefab elements ~ 33%.
• Projected reduction in the embodied CO2 in steel elements ~ 53%.

These provisional results were obtained using a pre-verified tool for embodied CO2 calculations. These are compared with UPB’s environmental product declarations from year 2015, which was initial reference point. Calculations made for modules A1-A3 regarding the manufacturing process.

In addition to the NollCO2 certification, Hyllie Terrace will also be sustainability certified according to LEED and health certified according to WELL. It is twelve floors high with an area of 14 000 m2. Construction began in 2020 and the inauguration is planned for the spring of 2023.