The Sven Wingquist Test Center is already the second SKF building in Germany to be LEED-certified. At the end of 2014, the company's Schweinfurt headquarters was also awarded the certificate following a general energy refurbishment. A total of 26 SKF facilities worldwide now have this coveted eco-label.

The LEED system, which was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998, is used to classify "green buildings": As a globally used sustainability certification, the system defines a series of standards for environmentally friendly, resource-conserving and sustainable construction. These include criteria such as the use of low-emission building and furnishing materials, the energy efficiency of the building, measures to minimize water consumption and even proximity to public transport.

In the case of the test center, the jurors rewarded the forward-looking planning and comprehensive implementation of sustainable building technology concepts with 65 out of 110 possible points. For example, the twin building designed by the architectural firm Tchoban Voss, which was trimmed for "LEED suitability" together with the architectural firm Holger Philipp and RMN Ingenieure GmbH, even keeps a "cool head" thanks to the ecological foresight of those responsible for the project: "The roof and terrace materials counteract the 'heat island effect' and thus simultaneously prevent the immediate surroundings from heating up artificially," outlines Jörg Frey from Plant Planning at SKF, referring to just one of the countless aspects that those involved in the construction took into account thanks to the support of the consultancy firm Baumann Consulting. "If you like, with the Sven Wingquist Test Center we have ultimately built a 'model building' for SKF's social responsibility," concludes Frey.

"Green" interior

The "inner workings" of the building also score highly in terms of environmental protection. "For example, the two new test benches enable very fast test cycles, which ultimately saves energy," says Dr. Thomas Zika, head of the test center. In addition, the waste heat from the test facility is used for the test center itself and the adjacent large bearing factory via heat recovery. "Last but not least, our test rigs will help to produce optimized generations of large bearings in the future much more efficiently and in a more resource-saving manner than has been possible to date," emphasizes Dr. Martin Göbel, Manager Global Testing at SKF. For such reasons, the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology has funded the larger of the two new "stress testers" with around 1.9 million euros, while the smaller one was supported with funds of around 1.6 million euros from the Environmental Innovation Program of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. kp