Top efficiency award: The decision helped the company win an unprecedented accolade in the newly released green office interiors ratings by the Green Building Council (GBC). It received the 5-Star Green Star Certified Rating for office fit-out recognising "Australian excellence".
Location: It is all the more unusual because, unlike most investment banks with offices in Sydney’s CBD, Morgan Stanley’s new digs are on Level 2 of 30 in The Bond in Sydney’s Flickson Road – the Lend Lease headquarters well to the west of the CBD.
These feet are made for … Instead of an air-conditioned ride straight to the car-park lifts, staff will have a 10-minute walk from Wynyard train station or buses.
Variety of green design inputs: Designed by a bevy of consultants – Bovis Lend Lease as head contractor, the Lend Lease Design Sustainability Unit, Arup and Elan Creative – the fit-out involved green solutions at every turn. The floor covering is 85 per cent low-impact. Carpet tiles, for example, can be replaced as pieces wear out: while the goats’ hair carpet uses fewer chemicals and less water in its treatment. The new plumbing improves water savings. Facilities include child care, bicycle storage and showers.
Green guidelines produce user-friendly workspace: Acting GBC chief executive Romilly Madew said its new interiors rating tool would promote fit-outs that provide healthier, more productive workplaces for office workers, who spend more than 40 per cent of their waking hours at work.
The Australian Financial Review, 17/5/2006, p. 3