Italpinas gets IFC approval for green building certification

ITALPINAS Development Corp. has secured a greenlight to use the green-building certification of International Finance Corp. (IFC) called EDGE, or short for Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies, to one of its developments.

The company said IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, awarded the EDGE certification to Italpinas’s Primavera Residences in Cagayan de Oro City.

Primavera is the first completed condominium project in East Asia to be certified by EDGE, which the IFC called its “innovation” unit as it helps property developers build and brand their properties “green” in a fast, easy and affordable way.

EDGE is supported by a software that encourages solutions to reduce energy, water and the energy used to make building materials by at least 20 percent, which is the standard for the certification, IFC said.

“All our future projects will be accredited and certified as green building by EDGE,” IDC Chairman and COO Architect Romolo Nati said in earlier interview.

The company said, Primavera, which will have 163 and 166 units for towers one and two, respectively, will be constructed at a cost of P670 million, which include the land.

Its second project, called Miramonti, meanwhile, is in Santo Tomas, Batangas, and will cost between P700 million and P750 million. It will sell the units of both developments between P85,000 and P95,000 per square meter.

Construction for both projects may start by this year, but all the necessary funding for the project has already been settled, company officials said.

The company, which said it uses passive and active green-design strategy, raised P207.44 million from its initial public offering, valuing the six-year-old firm at around P700 million.

“We are interested in alternative locations in the Philippines where we bring our innovative sustainable real-estate product. We’re also interested in expanding for mixed-use building to hotels to commercial and BPOs [business-process outsourcing],” Nati said.

The alternative sites that Nati are referring to are those second-tier cities of the country where the top players are still absent.

(Article from: http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/italpinas-gets-ifc-approval-for-green-building-certification/)

By VG Cabuag | Business Mirror