Specialist in making neighborhoods natural gas-free

About WDW

WDW makes districts natural gas-free. That is our mission. In this way we contribute to making the built environment, our living environment, more sustainable. Our tools provide insight into the district, the homes and the energy status. With our partners we ensure a well-founded approach to the housing stock. This creates an action plan in which it is clear which steps must be taken in which phases to ultimately be natural gas-free. By using our methodology, projects can be formulated and implemented.

WDW was founded in 2013 as a chain collaboration between Wolters Vastgoedbeheer, Van Dorp Installation Technology and construction company Van Wijnen. Through this chain, WDW made complexes sustainable for housing associations throughout the country.

In the period from 2013 to 2021, WDW made 2,234 social rental properties more sustainable, with 6,255 energy label steps being taken. Through this chain collaboration, we noticed that more quality could be delivered, and therefore a greater contribution could be made to making the built environment more sustainable and natural gas-free.

We discovered that if we could broaden the task, we could make an even greater impact. Expand by, for example, also offering sustainability measures to private homeowners or including sustainability of social real estate in the implementation. This broadening of the task fitted well with the elaboration of the Energy Agreement, in which the focus shifted from a sectoral approach to a district-oriented approach.

In order to connect well with this district-oriented approach, WDW applied for a European subsidy in 2019 to develop a district approach aimed at making real estate of all owners more sustainable. We did this on the basis of three districts and together with three corporations and three municipalities and network company Alliander and other knowledge partners.

We have received the subsidy and we are working on these districts. Due to the confidence in the district-oriented approach and to enable further growth in this area, Van Wijnen acquired the shares of Wolters and Van Dorp in 2021. Van Wijnen has thus become the sole shareholder of WDW. After this takeover, the district-oriented approach was further developed into an innovative, data-driven approach with which districts can be made natural gas-free. We still take the sustainability of corporate ownership as a starting point.

WDW’s portfolio has grown to include districts in the provinces Gelderland, Overijssel, Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland.