NBK headquarters named "Commercial Property Project of the Year" for 2021

• A sustainable, environment-friendly building providing employees with a work environment promoting creativity and excellence
• The new headquarters is a cornerstone in NBK’s Sustainability Strategy and a role model for green buildings

The headquarters building of National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) was named “Commercial Property Project of the Year”, in MEED’s Project Awards for the MENA region for 2021.

In this competition, participating projects are assessed by a panel of recognized industry experts and specialists, who compare the submitted projects in the region in terms of the high standard of work, adherence to budget and client satisfaction in a healthy and safe working environment. The evaluation also considers the value and quality of a project throughout its entire life cycle, from the design concept through to engineering and construction and its wider contribution to society and to the environment.

Other criteria also include the project’s ability to create jobs, provide training, support local businesses support consumer and business spending, enable knowledge transfer and foster innovation.

NBK’s new headquarters, which rises 981 feet tall divided into 63 floors, with a total area of 1.36 million sq. ft, has become one of the new landmarks of the financial district in the heart of Kuwait City.

The building’s exterior design shows innovative ways to use structure as part of controlling the environment, with 28 fins used for shielding the building from individual direct solar gain in the offices, with its blades soaring to the sky making it actually feel quite solid and prominent.

In building its new headquarters, NBK did not aim to compete to be the tallest and most glamorous, but rather focused on creating a sustainable and green headquarters the bank, bringing all employees under one roof to provide them with a work environment promoting innovation and excellence.

The building symbolizes a long history of excellence, a present of development and leading institutional work that provides a role model for modern banking entities, and also reflecting a futuristic vision to strengthen the bank’s leading position and maintain the course towards sustainable growth.

The new headquarters also represents a cornerstone in NBK’s integrated strategy to achieve sustainable development, a beacon for all in the field of modern architecture, and a role model for green buildings, as the building was fully designed and implemented in line with LEED Gold requirements, the leading green buildings standards.

Thanks to this, one year after the employees moved to the bank’s new headquarters, all energy and water consumption ratios and GHG emissions have improved.

It is worth mentioning that NBK’s unwavering strides in the sustainability area over the past years were appreciated by FTSE Russell by selecting the bank to be a constituent of its FTSE4Good Index Series, as the only Kuwaiti bank to be included in this reputable sustainability index. NBK was also listed on Refinitiv AFE Low Carbon Select Index in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) launched in cooperation with the Arab Federation of Exchanges (AFE).

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© Press Release 2021