The UK commercial real estate sector can do much more to cut carbon and save costs during the Covid-19 lockdown, according to the latest data from Carbon Intelligence.
Analysed energy usage from 300 commercial, office, retail and hotel buildings during the final week of March revealed only a 16% average reduction in energy use.
The worst 10% of buildings managed to reduce energy usage by just 3% during lockdown, while the top 10% of buildings achieved a 54% reduction – equivalent to £4,200 per week of energy savings per large office building and 5,600kg of carbon emissions per week.
The data also revealed that, on average, single-occupier buildings achieved higher emission reductions than multiple-occupier buildings, while, unsurprisingly, buildings with older plant and control systems struggled to cut energy usage at all.
Ventilation and heating were the biggest energy drainers across all buildings, covering more than half of energy use on average, with some buildings still operating central plant equipment on a standard time schedule despite no occupants during this period.
Buildings with a skeleton staff also fared poorly, with employees often working across multiple floors.
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