Coen van Oostrom: Rebel with a cause

“We have always been rule-breakers,” says Coen van Oostrom, gesturing out over the sweeping top floor of the 120,000 sq ft EDGE Olympic development in the heart of Amsterdam’s business district. There can be fewer settings more apt in which to deliver that phrase than in a building where a coffee-delivering robot, a hammock room and an amphitheatre full of cuddly toys coined “the cuddle puddle” are all integral elements.  But anyone who knows the ethos behind the EDGE buildings will also tell you that the fun stuff really is just that – the froth on top of two remarkable offices anchored by some of the best sustainability credentials in the world. And no one is more surprised by the nature of the stock he now delivers than van Oostrom himself.  “I never used to be much of a tree-hugger,” shrugs the chief executive and founder of Dutch-based real estate developer EDGE. His direct, matter-of-fact manner is a trademark. And it is one the UK property market is about to become more au fait with, following last month’s news that EDGE Technologies is set to make its London debut following a £50m acquisition of 60 St Thomas Street on the South Bank.  Here van Oostrom reveals what plans he and his crew of rule breakers have for London, promises there will be no invasion of “arrogant Dutch people from Amsterdam telling everyone how to do their jobs”, and explains how you wrestle a fleet of BMWs off a team of real estate alphas.  Banning the Bimmers  Van Oostrom is the first to admit that, once upon a time, he ran a “Trump-like” organisation. “Twenty years ago I ran a very different business,” he says. “It was much more traditional and money-focused. Then I went to a talk by Al Gore, and decided we needed to do everything differently.  “I remember I went back to the office the next day and said: ‘Right, I have been to see Al Gore and we are going to change everything. From now on we are only going to build sustainable buildings, we are going to get rid of all of our terrible BMWs and everyone is going to drive a Prius’.”  The reaction, he recalls, was mixed. But this was the first step along the road to becoming one of the world’s greenest developers.  As real estate companies across the globe find themselves in the midst of digital transformation programmes, advice on successful change management is like gold dust. So can it really be as simple as coming into work one day with a new direction and simply setting off on the rerouted path, regardless of the reaction? “To be honest, it was difficult,” concedes van Oostrom. “We had such a traditional real estate culture here. People loved their fast cars and the glamour, and then I came in one day saying what we were doing should be more focused on design and sustainability, and about more than just making money.  “There were a few people who were so hardcore they just said ‘I’d rather work at a broker and flip real estate’, so they left. There was also quite a big group of people who were quietly into this new way of development all along, so we were then left with a really large group who needed to adjust.” And did they? “Most of them, yes,” says van Oostrom before revealing that sometimes, the best way to kickstart a movement is to force a cultural shift within the business. “I really did tell everyone we were replacing all of the BMWs with Priuses and everyone thought I was crazy.” One member of staff asked to try the new car out and returned from his test drive with another idea. The car was good, he said. Much better for the environment. But it was ugly. He suggested Mini Coopers instead.  “I looked into it,” says van Oostrom. “And it worked because they have a lower carbon emission per km than the Toyotas, but they are cool and funky and they became a bit of a metaphor for what we want to achieve with the business and the new developments – that we could be more sustainable but also produce cool, good-looking buildings.”  And this, of course, was the next phase – proving that enough occupiers and clients were prepared to pay for smarter, more sustainable buildings to make the change in company direction a viable one. Off the back of EDGE’s approach to development, which has always been to deliver for specific clients from the outset rather than follow location trends, van Oostrom was confident that there would be tenants prepared to pay for sustainability as long as it was packaged in the right way. If he wasn’t, he says, changing the direction of the company would have been a much tougher call. “It would have been very difficult for me to justify if it had been bad for business,” he says. “But we caught a wave and I could see the move was going to be great for business, great for the environment, and great for attracting talent.” It certainly was good for business. The company is now the biggest developer in the Netherlands. And it was certainly good for the environment too, with the original EDGE building making headlines back in 2015 for being the smartest building in the world with a BREEAM rating of 98.36%. The EDGE Olympic then became the first building in the Netherlands to be awarded a WELL Platinum certification and a BREEAM score of 79.11%  – an achievement made even more inspirational given it is a retrofitted 1970s office block. Proof that with the right vision (and budget, of course), it can be done. With projects underway in north America and Germany, van Oostrom says that there has never been a better time to make its UK debut. London calling All eyes will be on EDGE Technologies over the coming months and years to see what they bring to London. The company’s chief operating officer Boudewijn Ruitenburg says it will be something the city has never seen before: “When you come to a market as big as London you have to deliver a showcase. We will be bringing something completely new to the market and it will certainly trigger a lot of occupier demand.”   Van Oostrom adds that they are responding to a gap tenants say there is in the market. “We have a couple of big tenants we work for in London now and they just aren’t happy with the real estate there. They tell us they can’t get the level of sustainability or tech innovation they need, and they actually started to approach us saying ‘can you do what you do in Amsterdam, in London?’ So that’s what we are going to do.” And what exactly will the first EDGE development in London look like? What will it bring that we haven’t seen here before? “What we guarantee is that we want to create what is, objectively, the best building in London in terms of sustainability, tech, health and design – we want to push the boundaries.  “We want to be the standout across that combination of four things. Ideally we will do that in a building with an amazing atrium and connection between floors, although we can’t promise that as we are still working on the design and zoning. But that is what we would want to do, the same way we have done the buildings here in Amsterdam.  “But we will push as far as we can to make it as much like the EDGE buildings here as possible – if we didn’t think we could do that, we wouldn’t do it at all. The building will be energy neutral and we will be using our internal tech and product team for the base of the technology. In London there are not a lot of buildings that really stand out. The fact that there is so much excitement around a bike lane in a building in the city says a lot about the level of innovation in London. I mean, that’s cool. But we will be looking to do much more with our in-house innovation teams.  “Plus, we are really lucky that since the EDGE buildings have become so famous, people around the world contact us directly. So someone with a paint innovation or a concrete innovation – they come to us and say, ‘we saw your building, we want to work with you’. We are not smart enough on our own to build these buildings. We need to scout to find the best innovators in the world. It just helps that a lot of them come to us direct.” On the specific timing, van Oostrom credits Brexit, adding that, for all of its downsides, it has been a useful part of EDGE Technologies’ play. “I don’t actually see Brexit as having a long-term, negative impact beyond a difficult couple of years. And actually, for us it was helpful, because it opened up the market to us.  “London is a city we have been looking at for a long time and we have always found very competitive. So maybe with the Brexit fear, it was made more possible for us to come into the market. The land we acquired is something we may not have been able to get a few years ago.” And the overarching impact of Brexit has not put them off the UK market? “Not at all. We are really optimistic about London,” he says. “There is such an amazing pool of talent there, and while we have seen that banking hasn’t grown much in the last few years, what is going on in the technology sector in the city is incredible. Plus, London is still the largest office market in Europe. When you want to play in the Champions League, you have to be in London. We are active in New York, Amsterdam and Berlin at the moment, and London was always missing.”   And as for the location, he says that after spending weeks and months pacing the streets of London in howling gales and pouring rain, the team decided that South Bank was the perfect spot to make a debut. “We wanted to be somewhere the funky tech and media companies wanted to go, and that’s not black and white in London anymore. But the fringes, somewhere that wasn’t a hardcore banking location, was what we were looking for. The building and location we have chosen could be not so black and white in London anymore, but city fineries is where Amazon etc are, and this location for us was one that wasn’t a hardcore banking location. It is a bit on the edge, but in terms of logistics its perfect.” Imitation as flattery  It is at this point that van Oostrom refers back to his earlier comments around dispelling fears of “the arrogant Dutch” telling the London market how to deliver offices. It is, he says, much more a case of bringing something fresh to the market that he hopes will ultimately be beneficial to everyone.  “London is an amazing city and it is such an opportunity for us to be able to work there. We aren’t saying we know better than anyone else or that we are better than anything in London.  “We are bringing the technology and innovation that we just don’t think is readily available in London offices at the moment, and we hope that will be seen as a positive thing.”  And if people copy that, he says that’s no bad thing. The opposite, in fact. “We are never going to be able to come along and do what Google did in the tech market and take over to become the only player – that’s not how real estate works.  “For us, people watching what we do and then taking our ideas and innovations on to use in their buildings and designs is the closest we will get to that kind of profile. That is the highest honour you can get in the real estate industry, and it is something we encourage completely. Why wouldn’t we? It’s good for business, it’s good for innovation and it’s good for the environment.  “And when we are doing something that we don’t think has ever been done before, why wouldn’t we want people to copy that?”  Spoken like a true rule breaker.