The route to achieving net zero carbon across Westminster by 2040 is likely to have “bumps in the road” given the scale of ambition, according to Grosvenor’s director of sustainability and innovation.
Speaking on a Westminster Property Association webinar, Tor Burrows said the goal was worth it given that it would add to the borough’s resilience.
A white paper on the topic, produced by the WPA alongside JLL, WSP and Vu.City, sets out a roadmap for Westminster achieving net zero carbon and identifies several key challenges facing Westminster City Council in reaching its target. These include the retrofitting of its historic buildings, which would require upfront investment from property owners.
“Not all members in the WPA have the same resourcing capacity or the same investment approach to commercially justify this upfront outlay,” Sonal Jain, sustainability director for net zero carbon, clients and workplaces at JLL, said during the webinar.
But, she added, the government’s announcement that it is to make climate risk disclosures mandatory could spur action from property owners as they will be able to properly see information on the financial value and risk from climate change.
Amy Jones, climate resilience programme director for Westminster City Council, said the majority of Westminster’s emissions come from its existing building stock, which includes 11,000 listed buildings and structures, 56 conservation areas and older housing stock, with 46% built before 1800, and that everyone’s efforts needed to be focused on this.
Burrows added that Grosvenor had already upgraded a Georgian building at 119 Ebury Street, achieving BREEAM Outstanding and an 80% reduction of operational carbon emissions, but admitted there had been an increase in the expected costs and several lessons learnt from the process.
Other challenges highlighted by the WPA’s white paper include the need for a common definition of net zero carbon.
The WPA in its pathway to achieving net zero carbon in Westminster is anticipating this to be done before the end of next year.
A lack of understanding of what net zero carbon actually is also makes it difficult to monitor the performance of buildings, including emissions from occupiers, the organisation added.
There is also a gap between the way a building is designed and how it is used and it can have higher energy use levels and emissions when occupied than planned, creating an energy performance gap.
The white paper is also proposing that all new developments are net zero carbon by 2030 and are either fully electrified or use other low-carbon heating options and be powered by renewable energy.
Jones said the council recognised that all-electric buildings would need to be part of the solution, but that the priority for the council would firstly be in reducing energy demands through efficiency and the way buildings are designed.
The WPA’s white paper also called on Westminster’s property owners, developers and investors to subscribe to an “impactful” carbon reduction framework covering both construction and operations, as well as look at influencing tenant behaviour by introducing “green clauses” in leases to encourage or mandate the sharing of energy data.
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