IWFM policy pipeline

2022 PRIORITIES

Bringing the big four to the fore

Sustainability, building safety, workplace strategy and how technology and data enable it all are the issues driving our policy agenda this year

Ultimately, IWFM’s 2022 policy work is focused on identifying the skills and data gaps that need filling so members can meet the challenges of the year ahead. There are four principal strands.

Sustainability

We will continue our work to help members achieve their net zero initiatives through various workstreams, including supporting a standardised approach to measuring an organisation’s Scope 3 carbon emissions and working towards meaningful roadmaps. We will work on sustainability’s social dimension, through our commitment to embed the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across our own organisation.

We will continue to foreground the unique role our members play in bringing together the needs of landlords, end users and the supply chain to develop a holistic sustainability strategy. Building safety

We will focus on the building safety manager (BSM) role, engaging with stakeholders to define and clarify the role’s competence requirements. We will closely collaborate with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, the Health and Safety Executive and those engaged in the PAS 8673 on competence for BSMs.

We’ll give guidance on other evolving projects such as energy performance.

Workplace

With the workplace playing a key role in connecting people, our EDI work help us to understand how the flexibility offered to users of office workspaces can be accommodated in other workplaces too. EDI is a key consideration so all people can do their best work, wherever they work.

Technology

Our focus is on the quality, relevance and applicability of data. Our surveys reveal that members do not necessarily have access to the right data, don’t collect it, or don’t use it. Our work will help members act on this information gap. We are working on several projects, including those driven by government to improve its own understanding of building life cycles.

The data we collect and act upon is key to all of our 2022 priorities; it is essential to better sustainability practice, ensuring the safety of buildings and life cycle planning and proving the value of the workplace. 2022 will also see us leading on procurement best practice, with late payment and contract models to the fore. But it is in these four key pillars that we will focus much of our work.

KEY CONTACTS Sofie Hooper Head of Policy Phil Jenkins Policy executive policy@iwfm.org.uk

EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION FOCUS GROUP ● The group, representing decades of impressive experience in this important area, will shape a meaningful IWFM action plan for the coming years.

BUILDING SAFETY ALLIANCE ● This collaboration seeks to implement the structures and guidance needed to make the BSM role a reality.

BUILDING SAFETY MANAGER ROLE ● IWFM continues to work on the PAS8673 competence framework for building safety managers to drive competence.

SCOPE 3 EMISSIONS GUIDANCE PROJECT ● Various Special Interest Groups are feeding into a project to drive a standardised approach to aligning measurement of Scope 3 emissions with decarbonising FM services.

SOCIAL VALUE CLIMATE EMERGENCY GROUP ● IWFM is feeding into a new working group of the National Social Value Taskforce that is reviewing how to strengthen the Social Value TOMS framework on effective climate measures.

NEC CONTRACTS ● Our NEC Steering Group continues to work on several Practice Notes supporting the new NEC Facilities Management Contract. WORKPLACE CONVERSATIONS ● IWFM continues to explore the future of work debate and build on proof points for the return on workplace investment.

GET INVOLVED ● Our policy work is informed by our members’ priorities. Share your views on policy matt ers with us at policy@iwfm.org.uk