Looking ahead with tentative optimism

Last year we brought together thought leaders from a broad range of backgrounds including academics and industry professionals from the built environment, finance, and technology, to take on the toughest questions facing our sector.

Never before has a movement, namely ESG & sustainability, moved so rapidly to the top of everyone’s agenda to dominate thought leadership. I’m excited to see Europe and the UK leading the way in terms of debate, discussion and implementation, but greater public and private sector collaboration, innovation and the deployment of new technologies will be central to our success in addressing the pressing issues that we face.

The CULS ESG Forum is firmly at the leading edge of this debate. We kicked o our annual webinar series in December last year, soon after COP26, and tackled the role of innovation and of mature technologies as e ective levers for asset owners and managers seeking to urgently reduce emissions within existing portfolios. Renewable energy technology and the growing reliance on data and machine learning for generating operational e ciencies are a vital part of the puzzle. However, for long term resilience we must drive greater insights that can be used to influence occupier behaviour towards waste-free utilisation.

In our second webinar in January 2022, we drilled down on the policies and incentives needed to accelerate decarbonisation of the residential sector. Our expert panellists laid out the scale of the challenge considering 35% of the UK’s homes were built pre1945, the importance of mobilising green finance and held the EPC framework up to the spotlight. This has become increasingly urgent with the onset of the war in Ukraine which has brought forward the dual challenge of energy security and energy poverty caused by the ongoing inflationary spiral.

Over 1,200 people joined or viewed our event in February that sought to provide a temperature check on the UK’s readiness for delivery of Net Zero at scale by 2050. Panellists discussed the key roadblocks we face in our sector and how we can create a coherent, low carbon economy capable of reliably meeting our long-term needs. Panellists were of the view that we still don’t have appropriate legislation and policy incentives in place to deliver large-scale systemic change that is urgently required. There is a massive green skills gap which is expected to cause a drag on the sector’s green delivery capabilities.

In April we turned our attention to the concept of a circular economy and to how we can transform from a ‘take, make, waste’ economy to a zero-waste economy to address climate change. The construction sector currently consumes around 50% of all the world’s mined and harvested raw materials and, including the operation and maintenance of the built environment, accounts for 45% of CO2 emissions. Awareness about reusing and recycling inventories is increasing with the availability of digitalised recycled materials markets that make it feasible to create value out of waste and promote redistribution. In an inflationary environment, a circular economy should be adopted widely to save on construction costs.

We tackled the ‘S’ in ESG in our final webinar in June when our panellists shared their perspectives on social cohesion, social value, and social capital; terms that are often conflated but which together represent key outcomes in place-based social value creation. The built environment isn’t about bricks and mortar, but rather people and communities. By focusing on ‘people, place, planet’, social value can be the golden thread that delivers benefits to the local community through the lifecycle of a development, from community consultation and planning through to construction, property management and occupation. A building is not just an asset to deliver rental income and capital growth; it’s an asset for those who use and occupy it that delivers social cohesion and community gains.

Strong collaboration between the public and private sectors is required in order to transform the supply chain, make good go further and overcome an existing ‘deficit of trust’ in the built environment sector. Considering a YouGov survey carried out in 2019 shows that only 2% of people trust developers, creating strong social value presents an opportunity for the real estate sector to set about rebuilding trust and reputation. It’s time to put people back at the heart of what we do and ask ourselves if we are genuinely benefiting communities and creating spaces where people can thrive.

Looking ahead, there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful, not least the depth and breadth of talent driving change in our sector. During the next few months, we will be delving into how we can manage a just and inclusive transition to net zero, while addressing first and foremost the cost-of-living crisis and inflationary pressures on energy bills; investment in nature-based solutions, including financing and valuing nature; and we’ll take on greenwashing as we ask how best we can encourage transparency, challenge assumptions, and move from talk to action. I o er my sincerest thanks to our fantastic sponsors, Savills who continue to support our work and to my dedicated ESG Forum committee members.

Please join us as we ask the di cult questions, share our learnings – good and bad – and push each other to go further than ever before.