BNP Paribas Cardif – Headquarters Offices

The Milan headquarters of BNP Paribas Cardif, the insurance branch of the BNP Paribas Group, is one of the most modern and functional office spaces in Italy’s economic capital. An environment that welcomes hundreds of employees every day, distributed over 5,000 square metres of office space, and that has been the subject of a major lighting upgrade carried out with the technical support of Quantum.

The initiative stems from the BNP Paribas Group’s strong desire to concretely translate its Corporate Social Responsibility policy into actions capable of combining occupational well-being, technological innovation and respect for the environment. The declared objective: to reduce the building’s environmental impact through a more rational and efficient use of light.

The project involved the complete replacement of the old lighting systems with new high-efficiency LED luminaires, connected to a digital platform capable of remotely managing each individual light point. The intervention was carried out without modifying the wiring of the existing electrical system, minimising interference with the day-to-day operations of the office and allowing the system to be quickly operational.

The result is a 70 per cent reduction in electricity consumption for lighting, equivalent to around 160 MWh saved each year, with a reduction in CO₂ emissions equivalent to 30 tonnes of oil not burnt. An environmental benefit that corresponds, in terms of CO₂ absorption, to the planting of more than 3,000 new trees each year.

The management platform, accessible via the Internet, enables intelligent and dynamic adjustment of light intensity, adapting it in real time according to multiple parameters: presence of people, daylight level, building orientation, activity cycle, seasonality, weather forecast. In this way, visual comfort is guaranteed in every working area, with a rational use of light only where, when and how it is needed.

A replicable virtuous model, as Cesare Ferrero, Head of BNP Paribas Real Estate in Italy, points out:

“The BNP Paribas Group is one of the world’s leading financial companies with more than 200,000 employees, 19,000 of them in Italy. We have the numbers to make an important contribution to environmental protection by implementing energy efficiency projects in our buildings.”

Isabella Fumagalli, Head of BNP Paribas Cardif in Italy, also highlights the human value of the intervention:

“Our company strongly believes in and invests in technology and innovation aimed at creating solutions that put the well-being and protection of people at the centre, whether they are our employees, as in this case, or end customers. We chose without hesitation to partner with Quantum because it perfectly matches this philosophy of ours.”

This intervention, significant for the entire city of Milan, is a concrete example of how even in the tertiary sector it is possible to achieve tangible results in terms of sustainability and innovation, with immediate benefits for people and the planet. Ten similar projects would be enough to reduce consumption and emissions to zero for more than 1,000 households: a realistic prospect for spreading a new culture of energy efficiency.