14.07.2025

Blog

From oversized to optimised: breathing new life into a Hasselt office site with pulse Consultancy

What happens when a vast office site no longer serves its original purpose? You look ahead — and that’s exactly what pulse Consultancy is helping to do.

Along the Hasselt ring road, three interconnected office buildings—each around 40 years old — originally designed for a single tenant — are approaching a pivotal transition. Lease renewal talks are underway, and the tenant’s space requirements are evolving, with a proposed reduction from 30,000 m² to 17,000 m².

But beyond space optimisation, a key challenge lies in significantly improving the site’s energy efficiency and overall comfort & well-being — all to meet the tenant’s increasingly ambitious ESG strategy.

So the challenge is twofold: how do you unlock long-term value while meeting today’s ESG standards and ensuring a future-proof site?

That’s where pulse stepped in.

The mission

Pulse carried out a full strategic assessment, focused on:

Optimising tenant breakdown
Optimising energy efficiency
Enhancing comfort and ESG certification readiness

Smarter space, smarter strategy

With a lease extension of 6 to 9 years on the horizon, pulse proposed a space reshuffle with minimal disruption:

Focus tenant operations in the more modern Blocks A & B
Free up peripheral Block C to support quick assessment and agile decision-making on future conversion
Leverage the modular flexibility of Block B to adapt spaces as needs evolve
Introduce social spaces like café corners to replace underused restaurants

💡 Longer-term ideas? Reposition Blocks A & B for future residential or co-living use, while fully rethinking or even replacing Block C.

A realistic energy makeover with ROI

Energy use was high — and renewable energy non-existent.

Pulse proposed a roadmap with quick wins and future-proof investments:

BMS installation (mandatory by end of 2025)
EMS/ sub-metering, lighting upgrades, and heating circuit pump replacements
Add 160 solar panels and fixed solar shading

🎯 Goal: Achieve EPC label E (currently X) and at least 5% renewable energy by 2028 — with ROI top of mind and minimal tenant disruption.

Going a step further: toward EPC label C

Looking beyond the initial targets, pulse also explored additional recommendations to further boost energy performance:

Add 150 more solar panels and replace outdated glazing → expected to bring the building to EPC label D.
Install a heat pump on top of the above upgrades → should allow the site to reach EPC label C, which could make the building compliant with Flemish EPB requirements until 2036 (subject to confirmation).

BREEAM-In-Use: raising the bar

A comfort and sustainability scan of Block A showed promising potential:

With targeted upgrades — from glare control to air quality, inclusive access and waste management —the score could improve from 29.91% (Pass) to 59.95% (Very Good).

Key results

Expected results Block A:

💡 Electricity use ↓ 53%

🔥 Gas use ↓ 12%

💸 Energy bill ↓ 37%

🌿 BREEAM-In-Use rating: from pass to Very Good

Expected results Block B:

💡 Electricity use ↓ 33%

🔥 Gas use ↓ 6%

💸 Energy bill ↓ 22%

Large, ageing office sites don’t have to be a burden. With a forward-thinking, ROI-driven approach, pulse supports asset owners in decarbonising their buildings, improving energy efficiency, comfort, and overall well-being. The goal: striking the right balance between short-term needs and a long-term, sustainable vision.

Thibaut MahieuBusiness Developer

Want to rethink your office site’s future?

Let’s talk

Name	Expiration time (days)	Purpose
i18n_redirected	365	It specifies the language in which you browse the site.
pulse_session	1	General Laravel session cookie, contains an encrypted session ID corresponding to the current browser session stored on the server. Therefore, there is no sensitive data in this cookie. This session may contain temporary data related to forms or the ID of the user logged into the platform.
XSRF-TOKEN	1	'Cross-Site Request Forgeries' are a type of malicious exploitation where unauthorized commands are executed on behalf of an authenticated user. Fortunately, Laravel makes it easy to protect your application against CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgeries) attacks. Laravel automatically generates a CSRF 'token' for each active user session managed by the application. This token is used to verify that the authenticated user is indeed the one making requests to the application. Since this token is stored in the user's session and changes every time the session is regenerated, a malicious application cannot access it.

Name

Expiration time (days)

Purpose

i18n_redirected

365

It specifies the language in which you browse the site.

pulse_session

General Laravel session cookie, contains an encrypted session ID corresponding to the current browser session stored on the server. Therefore, there is no sensitive data in this cookie. This session may contain temporary data related to forms or the ID of the user logged into the platform.

XSRF-TOKEN

'Cross-Site Request Forgeries' are a type of malicious exploitation where unauthorized commands are executed on behalf of an authenticated user. Fortunately, Laravel makes it easy to protect your application against CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgeries) attacks. Laravel automatically generates a CSRF 'token' for each active user session managed by the application. This token is used to verify that the authenticated user is indeed the one making requests to the application. Since this token is stored in the user's session and changes every time the session is regenerated, a malicious application cannot access it.

Name	Expiration time (days)	Purpose
cookies-manager	90	It determines whether you accept cookies or not.

Name

Expiration time (days)

Purpose

cookies-manager

It determines whether you accept cookies or not.

Name	Expiration time (days)	Purpose
_ga	730	Used to distinguish users.
_gid	1	Used to distinguish users.
_ga_<container-id>	730	Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed using Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property- id>.

Name

Expiration time (days)

Purpose

_ga

730

Used to distinguish users.

_gid

Used to distinguish users.

_ga_<container-id>

730

Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed using Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property- id>.

Name	Expiration time (days)	Purpose
_gac_c_<container-id>	90	Contains campaign related information for the user. If you have linked your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts, Google Ads website conversion tags will read this cookie unless you opt-out. Learn more.

Name

Expiration time (days)

Purpose

_gac_c_<container-id>

Contains campaign related information for the user. If you have linked your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts, Google Ads website conversion tags will read this cookie unless you opt-out. Learn more.

From oversized to optimised: breathing new life into a Hasselt office site with pulse Consultancy

The mission

Smarter space, smarter strategy

A realistic energy makeover with ROI

Going a step further: toward EPC label C

BREEAM-In-Use: raising the bar