Nominee
Sales Force Tower
Category
Innovative Project
Description
The project, Salesforce Tower Chicago, developed by Hines, a global real estate firm, and Salesforce, a global leader in customer relationship management was a 36-month project completed in December 2022. The building has 60 stories, 1.2 million-square-feet and is located at 333 West Wolf Point Plaza Drive, Chicago IL.
Salesforce Tower was the last phase for the Wolf Point master plan, a three-phase development designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, located on one of Chicago’s last remaining riverfront sites in downtown Chicago. This building is the most prominent piece of the Wolf Point master plan, which includes two luxury apartment towers, 2.5 acres of landscaped park and 1,000 linear feet of river frontage.
Salesforce Tower not only transformed the Chicago skyline, but exemplifies a life cycle approach. Just as concrete’s environmental impacts were considered, decarbonization strategies were used to take into account service life and use-phase impacts to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts across the life cycle of the structure. By doing this, the project team avoided merely shifting environmental impacts, such as emissions, from one point in the process or life-cycle to another. This project utilized carbon capture technology which allowed for cement reduction to achieve CO2 reduction targets.
Prairie Materials, along with Hines, MKA, and Walsh Construction were the team members who realized the vision for Salesforce Tower Chicago, the project being recognized, according to Hines, “the first office tower to measure and achieve a 19% reduction in carbon emissions”. Prairie played a strategic role in the project, with its technical expertise and providing more than 52,500 yards of a “greener” type of concrete, which was also produced using ENVIROCEM, VCNA St Marys Cement’s brand of Portland Limestone Cement (PLC), which offers a reduction in carbon footprint of 10% on average.
Concrete is an essential part in the value chain and, according to the Portland Cement Association (PCA) Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality, the carbon intensity of construction can be reduced through optimization in each phase. For Prairie, sustainable development is an attempt to balance the construction needs of an increasing population with the earth’s capacity to meet them – to build in a way that will not deplete the earth’s limited resources. Concrete’s durability, versatility and energy performance makes the best choice for sustainable development.
Evidence
According to the article published by Hines in April 2022, a great mark of the Salesforce Tower Chicago is that the building is the first ever office tower to achieve a 19% reduction in carbon emissions. Nineteen percent equates to a total verifiable structure carbon savings of over 7 million kilograms of CO2 which is equivalent to more than 1,500 cars off the road for a year, or about 800,000 gallons of gas. The carbon reduction was accomplished by an “Embodied Carbon Reduction Guide”, by Hines. This guide provides best practices for competitors and partners to achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions to collectively lower the built environment’s responsibility for 38% of all carbon generated across the globe.
Aligned with the strategies and ambitions of the industry, Prairie Materials promotes eco-efficiency through innovative practices, solutions, and sustainability commitments. Part of these commitments includes an industry-wide ambition to achieve carbon neutral concrete. This requires ongoing and investment in innovation and differentiated services, with the requisite expertise and the collaboration to contribute to world-class structures, such as Salesforce Tower. This project utilized carbon capture technology which allowed for cement reduction to achieve CO2 reduction targets.
Prairie Materials contributed to the carbon reduction achievement by performing to sustainability principles that included optimizing design specifications, construction processes and the materials used to be more performance and sustainability oriented, directly attributing to the tower’s structural performance, energy efficiency, resiliency, and carbon sequestration properties across the life-cycle of the structure.
Salesforce tower was the first Chicago Skyline high rise to solely use Envirocem from St. Marys Cement, which offers a substantial reduction of CO2 compared to traditional Portland cement. Numerous supplemental cementitious materials including fly ash, slag, and silica fume were utilized for applications for the structure, which allowed for cement reduction along with long term strength development - for mixes in excess of 10000psi, with reduced carbon impact, excellent mix consistency at high slump to achieve pumping requirements for the height of the building, increased paste density to achieve MoE requirements with local aggregates, and exposed concrete finishes due to mix aesthetic consistency.
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