A positive spin on adversity and a chance to reflect

As I finish typing this article I feel like I’ve had more interesting conversations about our industry (especially on the buy side) in the last 8 weeks than I have had in the last 4+ years. This is of course tinged with Outrage* at the lack of ambition in limiting carbon emissions and the Optimism* of finally seeing agreement to create a loss & damage fund at COP27. *Outrage & Optimism is an excellent podcast if you are looking for new listening recommendations.

Hannah Durden Sustainable Development Director

I feel hopeful that our industry is becoming a positive long-term agent for change in society.

Whilst there is still intense focus on commercial outcomes over sustainable ones (akin to our UK Government’s myopia over GDP), without the creation of monetary profit we are unlikely to see the investment needed in E, S and G to create a genuine ‘triple bottom line’ approach to business.

Taking the planet and environment first. In 2019 I referenced the Bloomberg Headquarters winning the Stirling Prize as it was seen as the most sustainable building in the UK at the time. Simon Sturgis was right to speak out saying that ‘we as a society cannot a ord, from a resource e ciency perspective, to be building this sort of high resource cost building.’ He asked Fosters to publish the embodied carbon data and highlighted that true innovation will come from ‘low-carbon longlife materials with high recycled content. They will be durable, flexible, easy to maintain, deconstruct and reuse.’

The Greater London Authority were listening and they issued their Circular Economy and Whole Life Carbon statements in March this year. My advice: don’t buy a scheme within the GLA boundaries and assume it will be OK to demolish and rebuild it without some significant optionality and carbon analysis. These policies have come into focus with the application to demolish and rebuild the 1930’s art deco M&S building on Oxford Street being called in by Michael Gove earlier this year. I recommend reviewing the outcome of the hearing which is imminent.

This embodied carbon issue is not going away and I have enjoyed being part of industry e orts to upskill our workforce using case study examples to provide sta training and client education: looking at the CO2 equivalent of certain material choices alongside cost and viability. LCA One Click appears to be the mainstream platform for designers and sites like Materials2050.com are helping to unravel the material challenge which I touched on last year.

When it comes to impacting people and diversity I think the industry is still failing to attract a really diverse pool of talent. Some companies are championing e orts: I have been impressed by what I’ve seen at Hollis Global and enjoyed supporting the 10,000 Black Interns programme.

Challenges remain around neurodiversity and threshold anxiety – worrying about coming back into an imposing o ce when you’ve been happily working remotely. Helen Causer recently wrote about Argent’s work in this area and acknowledged that ‘we must recognise diversity in all its guises and challenge the status quo’. According to Forbes, research from a 2018 Deloitte report found that companies with inclusive cultures were six times more likely to be innovative and agile. JPMorgan Chase found that professionals in its Autism at Work initiative made fewer errors and were 90-140% more productive than neurotypical employees.

We need to improve biodiversity and positively impact communities by creating green public space, better air quality and access to nature. As COP27 got under way, the UN highlighted that ‘for many years the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis have been treated as separate issues, but the reality…is that there is no viable route to limiting global warming to 1.5°C without urgently protecting and restoring nature.’ There is so much more the industry can be doing to improve the external envelope of a building so that it (a) generates energy, (b) improves biodiversity and (c) sequesters carbon.

In my 2019 article I had no doubt that a strong trend will start to emerge showing that carbon neutral, zero waste buildings will command a higher rent and investment value. Whilst we haven’t necessarily seen a green uplift we are seeing a brown discount factored into valuations as the MEES deadline of 1st April 2023 looms closer. What we need now is political leadership to push the climate agenda: a Future Homes Standard that provides zerocarbon housing, a stringent measure of operational energy that goes well beyond the EPC and clear guidance on how carbon taxation is going to work. If the UK does want to be genuinely netzero by 2050 there is a lot of work to do.

One final request: please, please do the work to upskill yourselves. Learn about carbon emissions, sustainable supply chains and the circular economy. I have clients asking for EPC improvement reports when they work for a company that has an ambitious Net Zero Carbon (NZC) pathway is staggering. Look to decarbonisation reports that use the CIBSE / LETI / UKGBC guidelines to provide a roadmap – inclusive of timeframes and costs – to become net zero. If COP27 taught us anything it’s that we are not doing enough so let’s use the skills of this industry to do what we do best in a recession and start to innovate and change the status quo.

Hannah Durden runs her own sustainable development consultancy advising on ESG strategy for companies and individual assets: www.cnzw.co.uk