Welcome to the latest edition of Sustainability Matters, a regular wrap from EG to make sure that you and your business is up to date with the latest news, views and opinion about all that is important in the world of ESG in the built environment.
Last year more than 20 real estate businesses signed up to the Better Buildings Partnership’s climate commitment. A commitment in which they pledged not only to be net zero by or before 2050, but also to share, publicly, exactly how they were going to get there. They agreed to share those pathways before the end of this year. And this week, Derwent London became the first of the UK REITs signed up to the commitment to do just that.
Derwent has set itself an ambitious target. It needs to get to net zero carbon by 2030. It has just a decade to make it all the way down its pathway. It won’t be easy, but chief executive Paul Williams and head of sustainability John Davies say they are up for the challenge.
“We know that the publication of our pathway is just one of the first steps to achieving net zero across our portfolio,” says Davies. “The hard work really does start now.”
Derwent is also one of 11 real estate businesses that have signed up to be Design for Performance pioneers, using their developments to pioneer energy efficient design and construction across the built environment. It is an initiative established by the BBP with the aim of creating a true – and useful – energy performance rating system for buildings.
The industry-backed project aims to provide an approach, based on measurable performance outcomes, that will ensure new office developments deliver on their design intent.
You can see all the projects that will be setting the example for the built environment here.
Landsec this week launched what it hopes will be its pioneering office development for a sustainable future. The Forge in Southwark will be, it says, the first commercial building to be both constructed and operated in line with the UK Green Building Council’s net zero carbon buildings framework and associated energy performance targets.
The Forge will be delivered using a platform-led approach to design and construction, known as P-DfMA, which consists of a set of components that can be efficiently combined to produce highly customised structures, enabling different kinds of spaces to be built with a single “kit of parts”.
The new approach has been identified by the government as essential to the transformation of the construction sector.
A trial led by Landsec, Bryden Wood and Easi-Space saw construction productivity improve by 55% and installation time reduced by 30%. Cost savings are expected to reach 33% when compared with traditional construction techniques, and the process is expected to result in a 20% reduction in carbon impact.
“Our target is to be a net zero carbon business by 2030,” says Landsec chief executive Mark Allen. “That means we have to start making changes to the way we do things now. We know that property companies have a vital role to play in addressing the climate emergency. We are clear, therefore, that our sustainability strategy must be deeply embedded in our development programme and we will continue to be ambitious in our approach.”
MEPC and Federated Hermes are going green in Manchester too and have pledged to speculatively develop a 200,000 sq ft net zero carbon office building at NOMA.
“With widespread public and business support for a true ‘green recovery’ after the pandemic is over, we only expect occupier and investor demand for high quality, sustainable workspace to grow further, which is why we have committed to making 4 Angel Square operationally net zero carbon, raising the standard for sustainable office development,” says Paul Pavia, head of development at MEPC, development and asset manager for NOMA.
While it is encouraging to see developers and investors committing to tackling the climate change challenge – and look out next week in EG for a major lender that is taking sustainability very seriously – there continues to be a worrying lack of action when it comes to the public sector.
Research by the Town & Country Planning Association found that two-thirds of local authority planners didn’t consider a development’s response to climate change when granting planning consent.
This lack of awareness has to change and investment will need to be ploughed into local authorities to make sure decision makers are educated about the necessity to consider the planet in planning decisions.
“If we really want to drive effective change,” says TCPA director of policy Hugh Ellis, “we need to provide decision-makers with clear policy priorities, transparent methodologies, and, wherever possible, nationally agreed standards.”
Collaboration and sharing of best practice and the tools, insights and intelligence will be key if the sector as a whole is really to make a difference when it comes to the climate challenge.
Frameworks such as the new innovation sharing tool launched by the UKGBC and Sustainable Ventures this week, the BBP’s various initiative to bring the industry together and to encourage them to share their methods and learnings, and even EG’s evolving Sustainability Hub – look out for fresh changes to that over the next few weeks and months – are all a step in the right direction.
The pathways are there. Now it is time to walk them.
Hungry for more information? Keep up with all things ESG by visiting EG’s Sustainability Hub
Photo by Alex Hinds/imageBROKER/Shutterstock
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