Covestro's new Shanghai office – A WELL Certified™ Gold Office

Lying in Qiantan in Pudong New Area, the so called Lujiazui 2.0 of Shanghai, Covestro’s new Shanghai Office, which occupies five floors of a building in Crystal Plaza, was recognized as a WELL Certified™ Gold office in July.

“It’s our employees who contributed their ideas to the design and the office is exactly what we want,” said Holly Lei, President Covestro China, in an interview in September. She called the office a “Museum of Materials” that includes many innovative sustainable material solutions from Covestro, the German materials manufacturer, and its partners.

“The new office combines the corporate culture, business development needs and our employee’s needs,” Lei said, adding that total investment was based on the benchmark of the Chinese office interior decoration market.

The new Covestro Shanghai office obtained the recognition of WELL Certification at Gold level with its innovation, sustainability, digitalization and people-oriented concept, which is deep rooted in the culture of Covestro. It is the first WELL certified office within Covestro and also the ninth WELL Certified™ Gold office in China in the New and Existing Interior category.

WELL is an international building standard and a leading global rating system for measuring the impact that a built environment has on human health and wellbeing. The WELL building standard addresses a number of concepts including air, water, light, nourishment, fitness, comfort and mind.

It is introduced by the International WELL Building Institute, a public benefit corporation whose mission is to improve human health and well-being in buildings and communities across the world through its WELL Building Standard™ (WELL™).

Entering the new office, one will be impressed by its open and cozy atmosphere, totally different from traditional office space. Covestro’s genic culture of innovation, sustainability, digitalization and people-oriented philosophy is reflected in details.

For example, in its open and activity-based workplace, all employees could choose wherever they would like to sit everyday — even Lei doesn’t have a fixed desk, not to mention an office room.

This is just a glimpse of Covestro’s innovation in breaking the design limitations of traditional offices, creating a “diversity and inclusion” office culture with a new open, flexible, multi-choice, healthy and stylish new office space.

Meanwhile, the new Covestro Shanghai office, being equipped with sensor monitoring, an indoor path planning system, multimedia display, and real time air quality monitoring, is a showcase of office digitalization.

As a leading enterprise in material science, Covestro also utilizes its advanced green material in the interior decoration of the new Shanghai office, for example Covestro’s Pasquick™ technology, is a good choice for floor coatings with high performance and environmental friendly property.

It is being used due to its great performance on stain and scratch resistance. This on the one hand ensures a healthy environment for the staff, and on the other hand helps promote its own material solutions.

According to the post occupancy survey conducted by Covestro itself, staff satisfaction is as high as 97 percent.

WELL certification reflects Covestro’s high regard for the health and wellbeing of its employees and is part of its corporate social responsibility.

Tony Armstrong, senior vice president for IWBI Asia said: “WELL’s goal is to improve the health and wellbeing of the human body through a healthier, more benign building space. The Covestro Shanghai office adheres to the concept of sustainable development and being people-oriented.

“It not only creates a healthy space, but also is the best practice for office space management and operation through details reflecting care for people, choice for work and creativity for innovation.”

Lei said the new Covestro Shanghai office is expected to be a showcase for Covestro, manifesting its corporate culture through open and flexible office environment.

“Currently, Covestro is promoting the open and flexible office environments worldwide. This is a global trend for Covestro.

“The new office takes the lead in that trend, as China is the biggest single market for Covestro. The new office is also a commitment to China,” Lei said.