Canary Wharf Group, British Land and Barratt Developments have joined forces to decarbonise the supply chain.
The Ambition into Action summit, convened on yesterday (22 February) by CWG, pulled together the supply chain to create a new partnership approach for suppliers and subcontractors to decarbonise their operations.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it,” said CWG chief executive Shobi Khan. “We know the transition to net zero is inevitable because 90% of the global economy is now covered by pledges. But the pathway is uncharted, and we need to turn that ambition into action.”
To achieve this ambition, and to meet the growing demand for energy-efficient spaces, Khan said, “businesses throughout the value chain must start working together”.
Khan illustrated the commercial opportunity for companies that decarbonise their operations and connected them to support and resources.
However, he added that the scale of the challenge could not be underestimated, with global emissions needing to halve in the next seven years to curtail global warming, and 40% of those emissions coming from the built environment.
“We were delighted to be joined by British Land and Barratt Developments, and invite others in the sector to partner with the supply chain to achieve the global goal of halving emissions by 2030,” said Khan.
Gareth Roberts, British Land’s director of Broadgate Developments, said: “Like others in the industry, we have a bold strategy to be net zero by 2030 – this presents a number of opportunities. The key to unlocking those opportunities is to convert ideas into action, and we can only address the most difficult challenges by working in partnership with the supply chain to identify innovative solutions that we can scale and use to accelerate progress.”
British Land opened its first net-zero-carbon development at 100 Liverpool Street in 2021. Barratt Developments, meanwhile, is collaborating with its own suppliers and the University of Salford on Energy House 2.0 future-proof homes.
John Adams, Barratt’s procurement director, said: “We need to partner with the supply chain to understand how we can work together to take our industry from where we are now to net zero. At Barratt, our collaboration with the supply chain to build the Zed House and eHome2 at Energy House 2.0 is already helping us define the path and gives us confidence that partnership is the key to building net-zero housing at scale.”
As yet, just 2.5% of the suppliers are reported to have approved Science Based Targets aligned to keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5ºC.
Recent analysis from the International Energy Agency shows that global emissions from buildings were 2% higher in 2021 than in 2019 (and 5% higher than in 2020), despite the number of major London occupiers holding a net zero target having more than trebled in the past three years. At yesterday’s event, JLL predicted that the scheduled lease events among these carbon-conscious occupiers alone will result in the London office market having an undersupply of net-zero space of at least 20m sq ft by 2031.
Canary Wharf Group aims to be an industry leader in the drive to decarbonise the supply chain. Over the course of the year, it plans to host roundtables to promote best practice, as well as providing workshops and free educational materials.
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