Corvinus Gellért campus wins Green Investment of the Year

The jury selected Corvinus Gellért Campus as the greenest Hungarian investment of 2024. The Corvinus University of Budapest building, inaugurated in February this year, has been LEED Gold international green building certified and AA+ energy efficiency certified since August. The campus development process was led by the Maecenas Universitatis Corvini Foundation, the owner of the property and the university’s maintainer.  

In preparation for the project, the Foundation opted to renovate the existing building instead of completely demolishing the original and constructing a new one, with work starting in autumn 2021. Thanks to the new building envelope and additional passive technology equipment, the building’s heating and cooling energy demand has been significantly reduced and is met by solar power and geothermal heat pumps. Water efficiency, the creation of an extensive selective waste collection infrastructure and the reduction of light pollution were also important aspects of the development. 82% of the demolition and construction waste from the old building was recycled after selective collection. The acoustic wall cladding in the educational spaces is also made of recycled materials. The size of the required car parking area was reduced in the permit procedure and replaced by a storage area for 170 bicycles. The building also includes a 1.1 hectare biodiverse park, and paved surfaces cover only a quarter of the site.   

“The Foundation and the University will continue to focus on sustainability after the building has been occupied, and we plan to launch new and new initiatives in the framework of community projects. We expect our partners in the building to pay special attention to sustainable development and environmental protection”, said Tibor Misovicz, Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Maecenas Universitatis Corvini Foundation, maintainer the University, who managed the investment on behalf of the Foundation. He accepted the award from Gabriella Balogh, a representative of Portfolio, and presented the Foundation’s invitation to organise the conference at the Gellért Campus next year.  

The sustainability conference, organised by the Portfolio business magazine and supported by Green Cloud and the Dandelion Group, this year recognised the most outstanding environmentally conscious initiatives in Hungary in six categories, with a total of 60 entries. The Corvinus campus competed with Schneider Electric – Duna Smart Power Systems and Tesco-Global Department Stores for the Green Investment of the Year shortlist. The jury members were Attila Chikán, CEO of Alteo, President of BCSDH, Alexandra Köves, Ecological Economist of Corvinus University, Imre Mécs, President of Solar Markt Group and Gréta Nagy, Managing Director of Dandelion Ltd.