Designed by Foster + Partners, Bloomberg L.P.'s new European headquarters in London has been dubbed as the “world's most sustainable office building”, the architecture firm announced. Housing Bloomberg's 4,000 London employees, the office building was rated as “Outstanding” in the BREEAM sustainability assessment method with a whopping 98.5 percent — the highest design-stage score achieved by a major office development. 

Occupying a 3.2-acre site, the nine-story building is designed to use waste products and is equipped with unique, adaptive solutions that respond to the building's external environment and its occupancy patterns throughout any given day. Compared to the average office building, the Bloomberg HQ delivers a 73 percent savings in water consumption, and has 35 percent savings in energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions.

Its integrated ceiling panel system features 500,000 LED lights that use 40 percent less energy than the typical office fluorescent lighting system. Designed in a striking petal-leaf pattern, the system combines heating, cooling, lighting, and acoustic functions. 

The building's “breathing” facade has exterior bronze blades that open and close to provide natural ventilation, while smart CO2-sensing controls distribute air according to the approximate number of occupants in each zone of the building at any given time. This system “is expected to save 600-750 MWhr of power per annum, reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 300 metric tonnes each year,” Foster + Partners describes.