*and every single day
Welcome to the latest edition of Sustainability Matters, a regular wrap from EG to make sure that you and your business are up to date with the latest news, views and opinion about all that is important in the world of ESG in the built environment.
This week has been focused on voices being heard. About the world finding a better way to be. How we need to treat people better and with kindness and respect and how we need to do the same for the planet too.
The week started with an open letter to the prime minister, signed by more the 200 businesses, urging Boris Johnson to put sustainability at the heart of recovery post-Covid-19. The letter was signed by scores of leaders from across the built environment sector, including David Partridge, senior partner of Argent; Jason Sipthorpe, UK president of Avison Young; David Thomas, chief executive of Barratt Developments; Chris Oglesby, chief executive of Bruntwood; Chris Taylor, chief executive of Hermes Real Estate; Helen Gordon, chief executive of Grainger; James Raynor, chief executive of Grosvenor Britain & Ireland; and Brian Bickell, chief executive of Shaftesbury.
The signatories to the letter want the government to provide a clear vision for its recovery efforts from the coronavirus pandemic and ask for that vision to:
- Drive investment in low-carbon innovation, infrastructure and industries, as well as improved resilience to future environmental risks.
- Focus support on sectors and activities that can best support sustainable growth, increased job creation and accelerate both the recovery and the decarbonisation of the economy.
- Include within financial support packages measures to ensure receiving businesses are well managed and their strategies are science-based and aligned with national climate goals.
JLL UK chief executive Chris Ireland, who was also a signatory to the letter, said: “We have ourselves made an ambitious commitment to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 and the Covid crisis has only deepened our conviction to accelerate net zero delivery. Now more than ever, we need strong leadership and swift action from government to ensure we are rebuilding UK’s economy in a sustainable, fair and inclusive way. The transition to net zero presents the biggest opportunity to drive sustainable growth while building long-term resilience.”
The agent recently updated on its own sustainability performance. Since 2012 it has reduced its energy use across all of its offices by 37% to 3,937 MWh, hitting its target a year earlier than expected.
Across the sector, more and more businesses are setting themselves even tougher targets to eradicate their carbon emissions and reduce their energy use.
FORE Partnership, led by Basil Demeroutis – another signatory to the open letter – has given itself just five years to be net zero carbon across all of its buildings and its business.
“We firmly believe that recovery from the Covid-19 crisis must be driven by a climate-led economic plan that accelerates the transition to net zero,” says Demeroutis. “Low-carbon, socially responsible design forms part of an important narrative that brings people to our cities, our communities, and our buildings. We must give our tenants and their stakeholders positive reasons why they should come work and play in our buildings, and transition away from being preoccupied with offices simply as places where work gets done.”
But being able to develop sustainable and healthy places takes more than just ESG-focused developers and a green economy, of course; in real estate, planning is everything.
And as barrister Martha Grekos writes, the link between good planning and good health is unequivocal.
“The quality of the built and natural environment has a significant impact on health and wellbeing,” she says. “Health and climate change considerations must be embedded in planning decisions if you want to see change.”
Hungry for more information? Keep up with all things ESG by visiting EG’s Sustainability Hub
