AstraZeneca Project Director Martin Sharpless tells Site Selection how HOK’s design supports the company’s goal of being energy neutral, carbon neutral and water neutral by 2025.

HOK designed the 100,000-sq.-ft. workplace to consolidate four divisions of AstraZeneca in a single facility in the Cove at Oyster Point, in the heart of the area’s biotechnology and technology community. The team designed the space to encourage collaboration and spark scientific innovation. It includes open lab space and an office environment that incorporates AstraZeneca’s iWork activity-based approach.

“It seems pretty clear that corporations need to take charge of their destiny, and that is basically our attitude,” said Sharpless. “We’re a healthcare company. It would be strange for us to pollute the water, heat up the air and damage the climate when at the end of the day we’re trying to make people’s lives better and longer. We’re looking to make any facility we retrofit better and any new facilities pretty darned good — if not net zero, at least net-zero-ready.”

He actually prefers the term resilience to sustainability: “Sustainability is the goal, resilience is a business operations decision, and it’s a good one when you can afford it. We’re trying to make ourselves as resilient and sustainable as possible.”