_5 ways property managers can drive Sustainable Development Goal: Climate Action
It’s an indisputable fact that average global temperatures are continuing to rise, with 2024 exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the hottest year the earth has experienced since the start of global temperature records.
In view of this, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that lie at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are more pressing than ever, and each SDG has specific targets to be achieved through collaborative efforts among governments, businesses, and individuals worldwide.
SDG 13: Climate Action, encourages countries to take action that will reduce the impact of climate change and increase resilience to climate-related hazards. For the built environment, this means building climate change adaptation and mitigation measures into building design and maintenance. Longer-term climate adaptation strategies should be planned into the retrofit of properties to ensure risks such as overheating, are considered early into the design.
Mitigation measures should be implemented alongside adaptation strategies, with a focus on improving efficiencies. In this article, we explore some of the ways property managers can contribute to this goal, through maintaining energy-efficient buildings, collaboration, and future-proofing buildings.
5 key ways to improve the performance of your building
Alongside a longer-term strategy to improve an asset’s performance, there are some key areas that can help drive improvements in a building’s environmental performance in the short to medium term, including:
1. Energy efficiency enhancements: Implementing energy-saving upgrades, such as upgrades to LED lighting, optimising HVAC systems, improving insulation, and integrating smart building technologies, significantly reduce a building's operational energy use and can be viewed as relatively ‘easy wins’. These upgrades can lower operational carbon emissions, decrease utility costs, and increase overall sustainability, aligning with environmental goals
A phased approach can be taken to these types of upgrades to ensure minimal disruption to occupiers whilst delivering enhanced energy performance, helping to future proof the asset, and making it more attractive to ESG-minded tenants.
2. Align with occupier ambitions: The use of occupier ESG surveys and on-site tenant meetings can help to understand tenants’ own ESG goals; a significant number of tenants are also looking to reduce energy use (their own Scope 1 and 2 emissions) which in turn works towards reducing landlord Scope 3 emissions.
Our Property Asset Management team works with a broad range of clients, including the Mercers’ Company, Bentall Green Oak and Robert Hitchins, to ensure that sustainability strategies for buildings have buy-in from occupiers. From our experience, we have seen that this alignment of ESG occupier is key to the success of behaviour change programmes and enhancement of sustainability initiatives.
3. Understand your building’s actual energy use intensity: Alongside tracking EPC performance, measuring actual energy consumption data can highlight areas for improvement. Best practice is to use sub-metering or AMR for an accurate read on building performance. Across Bentall Green Oak’s Welput portfolio, our team is working with the client to understand performance and operationalise asset-level plans for improved performance. Using actual building data, we are working alongside building managers on-site to help highlight opportunities for improvement using a data-driven approach.
4. Use of proptech solutions: Using tools such as Demand Logic for properties within their portfolios allows clients to determine additional efficiency gains once all other steps have been taken to minimise energy usage. In the case of one recently commenced project, more than ten actions were identified in the first month alone, leading to estimated savings of £4,000 per year in electricity costs.
5. Reporting: As the saying goes: “What is not measured, cannot be improved”. Tracking progress against targets, benchmarks and anticipated energy performance is essential. Our team puts a range of regular reporting in place according to client requirements, whether that be fund level, asset level, or support of investor queries. Monitoring progress, and taking a data-first approach, is a crucial step in understanding actual energy consumption, and ensures accountability and action.
Each building has its own specific sustainability needs, which is why our Property Asset Management team work closely with clients to implement actions like these, helping property managers meet their short term sustainability goals, whilst also creating long-term value in preparing their assets for the future.
Get in touch with our expert team to find out how you can start saving energy and cutting costs today.