COMMENT It has come as a significant relief to many (myself included) that the immediate threat of a global pandemic has not served to distract the real estate industry from the longer term threats posed by climate change. Not a day goes by when a real estate investor, owner or occupier doesn’t make another headline grabbing commitment, investors are mobilising capital to support the transition to a low carbon economy and supply chains are innovating to provide the latest solutions. There is an inexorable and very welcome transformation emerging and not only in the real estate sector – in these challenging times businesses are more keen than ever to link their purpose to the environmental, social and economic challenges we face.
Bridging the knowledge gap
But who exactly is going to deliver on these commitments and put these investments to good use and utilise the latest technology? As an industry, we need to be honest. There is a gargantuan skills gap. A survey by the London Property Alliance found that 93% of real estate professionals would benefit from learning more about the climate crisis, and recent research by the BCO focused on the skills gap among office property managers, stating that sustainability knowledge will be a key component for tomorrow’s property managers. So what skills does the industry need to deliver this transformation?
Investors and asset managers need skills to decipher where to allocate capital to create greatest impact and how to reflect that value back to the market. They need skills to navigate their way through the vast array of ratings systems, benchmarks and assessments and then align their investment decision-making with these requirements.
Property owners need skills to set the right specifications for new buildings and manage existing buildings to deliver sustainable outcomes. They need to integrate this into contractual requirements to ensure that buildings fulfil their potential and to learn how to embed a culture of transparency within their business to meet stakeholders’ demands for accountability.
The supply chain needs skills to respond to these briefs: architects designing net zero buildings; engineers running advanced modelling; consultants calculating embodied carbon; contractors adopting circular economy practices; asset managers measuring performance; property managers engaging with occupiers; cleaners recycling waste; surveyors undertaking valuations; advisers assessing acquisitions and disposals. The list goes on.
And, as a visiting lecturer at City Business School, it would be remiss of me not to highlight the critical importance of providing the sustainability education for future real estate professionals – starting with the school curriculum, but continuing throughout undergraduate and post graduate education.
We need leadership and infrastructure to support these professions, including standards, competency frameworks and training – ensuring that sustainability skills are required for everyone, not just the few that express an interest.
Upskill from the inside
The second way of addressing this question is to ask what kind of skills do individuals need? I’m not talking about competencies, but attributes. We need to be collaborative, bridging the gaps in this highly fragmented sector with a shared focus on outcomes that deliver impact. We need to be curious and creative – daring to be different, challenging the status quo and finding ways of involving stakeholders in engaging solutions.
At the BBP we play a small part by helping to upskill our property owner members and the wider industry, but the pace of change is not nearly fast enough. This upskilling must occur from the inside out so that sustainability thinking is embedded within the core DNA of real estate professionals.
It’s time-consuming to re-programme a lifetime of acquired knowledge, so we need to start investing in human capital right now if the industry is to realise its sustainability ambitions within the next decade and capitalise on the opportunities this presents. Research by the LGA highlighted that the UK could create almost 700,000 new green jobs within a decade, and a further 488,000 through to 2050 – this is a fantastic opportunity for our sector and for real estate businesses who turn sustainability into a competitive advantage.
It’s almost exactly a year since we saw the industry gather outside the UKGBC offices to march for climate action, and since the BBP launched its Climate Commitment. One year on, I’m declaring a sustainability skills emergency and I’m imploring the industry respond with an appropriate degree of urgency.
Sarah Ratcliffe is chief executive of the Better Buildings Partnership
