The journalist complaining about the PR industry is an old whinge. But with greenwash all around, the overpaid and underskilled are finding new ways to make our blood boil. I receive an email from a member of the Camargue PR team about the
"Most importantly," the pitch tells me, "for the first time it allows businesses across the
Back in 2003 when I was full-time at Building - yes those bygone print days - I got to know Mark Way pretty well. A thoroughly nice bloke he was at architect and engineer RMJM at the time as head of research. He'd dreamt up a simple yet great concept called Soft Landings, which I wrote an article on it back in 2003. As a typical hack I moved on to the next subject and have given the idea little thought in the intervening years. Until a piece I spotted in BSRIA's website came to my attention which promises to give Way's vision renewed momentum.
Here's a cautionary and probably typical tale for post-occupation. Swiss Re was dubbed "London's first ecological building" when it was completed back in 2003, which would lead to up to 50% less energy use than a traditional office. This was partly down to its natural ventilation system. Martin Spring's revisit in today's Building offers the reality - Richard Stead, the current property services director says such savings are "a bit over-ambitious" as now that the building is multi-lease only one occupant (Swiss Re itself) is using natural ventilation. Why so - maximum comfort, tenants that want confidentiality who put up partitions and a lack of financial incentive in energy savings for firms that are paying top dollar rents for grade-a space.
Plenty of attention of late on the role of supermarkets in society of late. The attention can become somewhat hysterical but a couple of recent interventions have been interesting. The Sustainable Development Commission's new report Green, Healthy and Fair looks like a useful addition to the debate.
I had an interesting chat with some key people at property management outfit Prupim last week. I underlined one part of what Paul Cornes, head of sustainability, had to say. The firm has effectively outlawed the phrase 'corporate responsibility'. "It's over," he says.
Who knows much about the carbon reduction commitment? I must admit that it's not something I've got my head around fully, but from the looks of it it's one of those pieces of legislation that business and industry need to get up to speed with pretty bloody quickly. Property Week has been covering it for a few months in relation to the impact on landlords. A piece last week claims that the British Property Federation has won some concessions from Government on the scheme.
Continue reading "Carbon Reduction Commitment and property" »
I don't know about you but it's been pretty gloomy year so far. And now the R word enters stage left. Yes recession appears on the cards. So where does this leave clients, both in the private and public sectors, and their decisions on future sustainable budgets? Will the talk be cheap or will the rhetoric really turn to reality?
I was encouraged to see some sustainable coverage in the finance section of Property Week last week. It occupied a full page at the real business end of the magazine, and for me that's quite a statement. It's hopefully part of the evolution in the demand and client side of the industry from an interest in the environment to really embracing the principles and doing it. The article (subscriber only I'm afriad) sets out the steps being taken in particular by fund manager Hermes.
Continue reading "Hermes points the way forward for property" »
So we end 2007 with yet another report and yet another major piece of future legislation for the industry to grapple with. This one's for non-domestic buildings and the report has been worked on for government by the UK Green Building Council. Although the code is some way off the UKGBC is talking 2020 as the date when zero carbon buildings can be achieved. It would be easy to dismiss as another document with heady ambitions leading to botched delivery but I see the report somewhat differently.
I think I'm largely repeating points that have been made before this week. Anyhow. An interesting chat with a client at lunch today. He was positive about how both project teams and end users are becoming more and more enthusiastic and demanding about going green. There was a but, of course, and it's the profession that usually gets it - planners.
Very interesting acquisition struck earlier this month. Property consultant giant Jones Lang Lasalle has bought sustainability advisor Upstream. I'm sure we will see a lot more of this kind of activity in the coming months. Upstream seems to have an impressive list of clients and most recently compiled a report on the green credentials of leading housebuilders.
If as I just wrote 2008 (and beyond, of course) should be the year of delivery what are we to make of the Olympic green targets set yesterday? Permanent buildings to perform 15% better that Part L 2006 standards? Homes to reach Code Level 4? A legacy target of reducing emissions from the Olympics Park by 50%? I'm sure the clamour to keep costs down on this job has probably hampered the environmental ambition. So our next challenge for the next year and beyond is achieve the dream, to prove that the sustainable solution is the lowest cost one. It's a target set by a evangelical consultant I met last week and if he nails it I'm thinking he's found a licence to print money.
The 800 Million Pound Train Station, a documentary on the making of the new St Pancras train station now showing on BBC2, has been gripping. Not really because of the scale and the ambition of the project but due to the access the cameras have had to the team involved. It's extremely rare to have such a warts and all view of the construction process, and confirms a lot of industry cliches: the precious and pompous architect, the stressed out but hard-nosed contractor, the feckless subbie etc etc. But in spite of the tantrums, tears and bust-ups it presents an industry that is (largely) honest, hard-working, passionate and determined.
Interesting online seminar held by Property Week yesterday on energy performance certificates (you can still download it on their site after a brief registration). here's some highlights:
There's always the danger with discussions on sustainability that you end up discussing life, the universe and everything. It happened to me a few times this week. It can be slightly defeating as the detail and basics need to be right before you can start trying to change the world. But that shouldn't preclude a widening of discussions. Two disparate issues I considered with a couple of experts need much more thought - the law and IT.
So it seems that the quietly released new timetable for commercial EPCs seems to be following the implementation of the housing certificates - big first, then rolled out to smaller properties. I'm not sure this is a response to market concerns, but more that the department is not ready yet for the implementation. And similarly to the housing side are there enough assessors to check commercial and public buildings?
Thought I'd share with you the news of a major 'surprise'. The rollout of the Energy Performance Certificates has been delayed. The DCLG website has quietly thrown up a new timetable which puts back the implementation of the certificates by effectively six months. No reasons, just a new timeline. Timidity or realism?
What's stopping clients, especially private ones, from taking the plunge and pressing ahead with financing, building, buying or renting a sustainable building? Evidence, of course. This is the overwhelming feedback I'm getting from people grappling with sustainability come back to me with. Without hard facts, figures and benchmarks the market will only pick up in a patchy and piecemeal fashion. Hence I'm detecting some frustration amongst those trying to push ahead with bold and exciting projects about how they can truly persuade those that really matter, ie the guys or girls with the cash, to come on board.
I've written before on the major strides taken by shed developers in addressing the impact of their industrial units. Now Property Week reports (it's subscriber content only I'm afraid) that a group of them met over summer to establish a new standard for sustainable sheds of the future. The group, called the Joint Developers' Forum, has enlisted the help of engineer Guy Battle to work out the detail. BREEAM is not enough, according to Jonathan Fenton-Jones, global head of sustainability at Gazeley. "There is no directly applicable benchmark in the areas that we are looking at," he says.
Two stories on the new Building sustainability channel I'm working on show how significant behaviour and culture is to sustainability, not just revolutionary technology and innovation. First the news that the BCO is working on relaxing its specification for office temperatures in summer. Second is a case study on the new National Trust HQ in Swindon, which has nurtured a "cardigan culture", ie. persuading users to get used to changes in internal temperatures in the building. So you adapt by adding or subtracting layers.
I’m quoting from the screenwriter William Goldman, who won two Oscars for his scripts for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men. The phrase “Nobody knows anything” was his dictum on just how little those in Hollywood knew about what films would perform and what wouldn’t. It appeared in his fantastic memoir on the absurdities of the film business, Adventure in the Screen Trade.
What are the reasons for the millions of fluorescent tubes and bulbs left on overnight in empty buildings up and down the land? Apathy, mismanagement, ego? I'm offered a constant reminder of the phenomenon, so commonplace you often forget just how significant the profligacy is. The proud, bright and sparkling towers from Canary Wharf towers beam through the front room of my east London flat every night.
Not very reckons the Green Party. It has published a report on the environmental credentials of London's hosting of the Games, reports this week's Time Out. Strangely I can see no mention of this on the Green Party website. I can understand the criticisms in the report - lack of renewables, loss of biodiversity - but have some sympathy for those running the uber project - balancing those demanding the highest possible quality and sustainable standards against those baying commentators ready to stick the knife in when there are slips made on the programme or budget.
Clients I urge you to follow the example of Urban Splash and make your websites like this one. It's for an upcoming project in Leeds called Saxton and I'm indebted to Tom Potter at architects PHS for pointing me towards it. They've come up with the catchline 'There's no Place like Gnome' and run with it in a big way. You have to have sound on your computer to enjoy the warped genius of it (our favourite gnome in the office is the black yellow and red one with the high pitch sound, if you're interested). I think I've got rather too excited about this concept as there's another site which shows you how the gnomes were made. Oh and the project sounds good as well - there will be a wildflower meadow, an orchard and 27 allotments in and around the 410-flat development.
Development giant Land Securities was at pains to tell me its environmental credentials when I popped in to see the firm last week. I left with plenty to ponder but what stuck in my mind was the fact that the firm had installed wormeries in the canteen of its headquarter office in Victoria. A sign that the environmental message is spreading beyond CSR reports and targets. The Landsec move has not gone entirely smoothly, apparently - at first the wormeries were positioned in the canteen themselves, which apparently put some staff off their (presumably) organic five bean salads and falafel. "They were scared the worms would end up in their spaghetti," quipped my environmental mole at the firm. The wormeries have now been repositioned in the kitchens to allay such fears.
Exeter council has recently shown its support for sustainable housing by hosting a breakfast event, at the Livestock Centre at Matford, for its preferred suppliers and consultants. During the event, the council made clear how much it wants promote sustainability and that it now requires contractors to adhere to the council's Green Accord and Selection Procedure - a code that sets benchmark targets for all parties in the housing process.
Continue reading "Exeter Council back sustainable construction" »
A report in Saturday's Telegraph claims that property giants such as Hammerson, Hermes and DTZ are drawing up plans to develop 'green leases'. These will link energy and water consumption as well as waste production with rent reviews and leases. One of the ideas under consideration by the group is introducing gross leases - these would see landlords pay for all bills related to running a building, giving it a huge them a huge incentive to force tenants to reduce consumption.
Interesting feedback from my post last week on the energy performance of Portcullis House. Casey Cole, a green blogger based over In Italy pronounces it a clear fail, concentrating on how much the building emitted from 2005-2006. He reckons the building uses 50% more electricity and 60% more gas than a bog standard 1990s office block. I think I'm going to do some further digging on this by speaking to the architect Hopkins and engineer Arup. It certainly raises some questions.
Without proper post-occupancy evaluations we will be nowhere near to tackling the built environment's impact on the environment. A bit of a no-brainer but how much of it is actually taking place?
This is a topic I'm going to be delving deeper into, both in this blog and in a more ambitious website I'm looking to create (more on that in future posts). So I decided to take a high profile building and find out how it was performing some years after completion, namely the MPs office opposite the Houses of Parliament, Portcullis House. I put a Freedom of Information request in a few weeks ago and received a pretty swift reply that pointed me to a recent parliamentary answer (see below). It shows a gradually reducing C02 usage, from 652 tonnes in 2003-2004 to 537 tonnes for the last year.
Continue reading "Portcullis House's energy performance revealed" »
Interesting new survey released this week by design outfit BDGworkfutures. It confirms behavioural problems amongst office workers, claiming that of those staff who have environmentally-friendly initiatives happening within their company 70% feel it's not up to the individuals themselves to be responsible for them. They expect responsibility to lie with directors and facility or office managers.
Continue reading "Office workers shun green responsibility" »
It's intriguing to see how firms outside of the property and development world are tackling the climate change challenge, and how some appear to act different to how many would expect. Take media giant Sky for example, which you would probably not immediately imagine was a strong advocate for taking action against global warming. Well think again - the firm has created a specific site which is offering a whole host of advice about reducing your carbon footprint.
On the not so good front appears to stand fellow media monolith Apple.
I've just watched the British Land webcast and scanned through its Corporate Responsibility Report for 2006. Interesting stuff. Here's some highlights:
Continue reading "More from British Land - offsetting, targets and KPIs" »
Another major client announces its environmental intentions. Developer British Land wants to go carbon neutral by 2008/2009. It's a three-pronged strategy: manage and reduce direct emissions; reduce the carbon content of energy supply; and offset. It doesn't state what proportion will make up each of the three strategies. The firm also released statistics on energy for the firm's portfolio showing that overall energy use dropped by 4% and water use by 16%. And it reckons its two new developments in central London - 201 Bishopsgate and Broadgate Tower - are forecast to be 29% better in performance than required standards and are on course to achieve a BREEAM excellent rating. The firm released a Corporate Responsibility report yesterday and held a live webcast which you can see a recording of.
I spent and hour late last month with Adrian Wyatt, founder and chief executive of developer Quintain. I left feeling as if I had just swallowed a quadruple expresso. Wyatt is buzzing with energy and ideas and you can’t help being infected by it – he’s part philosopher (he cites English philosopher Karl Popper Einstein and Marx during our chat), part salesman and part missionary. Wyatt is preaching the need for urgent change in the whole nature of capitalism to meet the need to curb climate change. And he’s in a powerful position given his firm is behind plans to redevelop two of the biggest urban areas in the UK, if not in Europe – the sites surrounding two recent project with equally troubled histories, Wembley stadium and the Millennium Dome.
Some key messages to come out from Cannes delivered by speakers:
Lots to round up from around the globe:
I've enclosed a new article by respected author James Nisbet which I think raises serious issues about how sustainable theory can be turned into practice. Nisbet attracted much attention in the QS and project management circles when he raised doubts in a book Building Contracts Reformed about the move from traditional contracting to new forms of public sector procurement methods such as PFI and cost plus contracts (see article in QS News).
Whilst the Conservatives have already received plenty of flak for their plan to curb the growth of air traffic by adding fuel duty or VAT to domestic flights (there's a particularly vitriolic piece in this morning's Times on this issue) I see David Cameron is at least putting some of the theory into practice. The Tory party's new HQ, a few minutes walk from the Houses of Parliament, has decent green credentials, according to the Telegraph. The office furniture and computers have been brought from the former headquarters, there is a reclaimed wooden floor and a policy to recycle 80% of waste when the buildign is occupied by party workers this week. There are also movement sensors controlling the lights.
It's quite understandable that reporting on climate change can get a bit gloomy. Here's my attempt to lighten the mood a bit with some more cheery news:
Industrial developer Gazeley has completed this 38,324 square metre warehouse in Sheffield in joint venture with Hermes. The firm boasts the scheme has seven sustainable qualities.
Continue reading "Gazeley rolls out sustainable shed model" »
Plonking up industrial sheds has probably not been traditionally at the progressive end of construction and development. Chucking up crinkly pre-made units on green spaces near roads is probably how many in the industry see it. How unsustainable is that? Well, perhaps so far gone from an environmental perspective that it is ripe for a revolution. In fact I could see the sustainable overhaul of the industrial unit offering outstripping the much-heralded one in UK housing. Let me explain why, and it's not just about slinging on some grass on the roofs (pictured).
Continue reading "Industrial sheds - a zero positive future?" »
A new report lands in my inbox stating reasonably well known fears - there's an increasing risk of floods and the property industry and the Government has not fully wised up to the fact. We are offered some scary numbers to back up the reasearch, penned by the College of Estate Management, a Reading based charity - it estimates that over £220bn worth of property is potentially at risk of flooding from rivers, groundwater, sewers and "coastal excesses". It claims that to meet the added risk from climate change requires a 20% upsizing of existing defence schemes. Without enough defences there's the vicious circle of disappearing insurance, abandonment of schemes and a knock on drop in land and property values. Are you listening Thames Gateway?
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