“ Sustainability the Environment / Green Economy - Sector Challenges and Strategies" Exclusive Business Presentation – 23 RD July 2020 Philip Neaves - Felsham Planning & Development
The clock is ticking. By 2050, the UK government hopes to have achieved net-zero- carbon status. While it is a highly ambitious target, it is achievable. However, companies have to act quickly. This will impact you operationally and financially regardless of the size of your company A net carbon building is defined as one that over its entire lifetime from sourcing materials, to construction, to operation emits no more carbon into the atmosphere than it takes in. The theme of this talk is that in the coming years you will be increasingly rewarded or punished through the tax system because of the decisions you make about developing and occupying
Factors to consider: 1. How you use your space 2. How are you going to be measured 3. What’s going to be expected of you 4. Cost implications – embedded carbon replacement 5. Tax – at the heart of the tax system is the principle of taxing bad behaviour (alcohol petrol etc). Once bad behaviour has been discovered expect it to be taxed if it is not addressed. 6. Society’s changing attitudes – your environmental performance will come under scrutiny from customers, staff and lenders. Be aware of what is on the horizon and make decisions accordingly.
The Role of the Built Environment • The built environment contributes around 40% of the UK’s total carbon footprint, so the property industry has a big role to play. That means both developer, landlord and tenant. • An estimated 80% of buildings that will be in use in 2050 have already been built. • A much bigger challenge is how to tackle embodied carbon in existing buildings • Embodied carbon is defined as “the total greenhouse gas emissions – often simplified to ‘carbon’ – generated to produce a built asset”. This covers every aspect of construction, including the transportation of materials, retrofits or refurbishments, demolition and disposal of materials. It does not cover operational emissions. • For you as a business owner and an office user embedded carbon means carbon contained in your fixtures and fittings. Your impact will be through your replacement and refurbishment. • The audited carbon rating of your building may in future become a part of setting locally collected business tax or some other as yet undeveloped national tax.
Falling short The problem is energy use will increase in the future. At present 25% energy is from • cloud computing. That figure is set to rise exponentially. There is a conflict between net zero and office well-being. A lot of air is pumped • through an office to create an ambient temperature. The solution is to design for the natural flow of air. There is no definition of what good looks like but the consensus is that the key is to • focus on embodied carbon. The industry needs to be part of the ‘circular economy’ whereby waste is reused through recycling.
Retrofit vs new The refurb/retrofit-versus-new-build assessment presents a lot of challenges for • building owners. You could potentially refurbish a building to find efficiencies, but maybe the fewer • refurbishments we do, the less embodied carbon there is in the process. One major challenge the industry faces is that many retrofits and refurbishments • are done with little consideration of the longer-term environmental impact. At the moment, we fit space out for each tenant that comes in. Many people believe government intervention is needed to either force or nudge • these landlords into action.
Carbon-friendly retrofit The threat of a ‘brown discount’ looms large over their buildings. • • It’s a trade-off between a building owner recognising that if they don’t retrofit and refurbish their assets and present a sustainable, healthy, resource- of being occupied or having occupier appeal. efficient building for occupiers to occupy, they are essentially going to have a sub-optimum asset – and possibly in the future a stranded asset in terms • This will become a factor for many of you in your future occupation decisions. aware it may make you an unattractive employer to be in anything other than an ESG building. • You may find demands of customers, shareholders and staff determining your decision. With the millennium generation being very environmentally buildings down and building new ones. • So we are stuck in this system of consumption where the model we have requires investors of all types to generate returns largely through knocking the exception, not the norm. • The problem we have when we do build these new buildings is although some are very sustainable and use a small amount of energy, they tend to be The answer is for the industry to get better at doing more with less. • • The clock is ticking, but the property industry still has time to make significant savings on the embodied carbon that resides within existing buildings if it takes action now.
Covid19 Environmental Effects As a result of the coronavirus restrictions imposed on the UK in March, average air pollution levels in • some cities have dropped by 60%, according to data from the Defra. Covid-19 is set to change the way we perceive home working and commuting, which could bring • about enduring shifts in behaviours. Remote working is now a widely accepted solution, providing a great opportunity for firms to iron • out any inefficiencies and emerge from the crisis more open to the regular practice of working from home. We are likely to see an increase in fragmentation within the office sector, both to ensure employee • safety and from a business continuity perspective. Large centralised headquarters are likely to be re-evaluated, and this has the potential to regionalise • flexible spaces. Should the next pandemic emerge, businesses whose employees are spread across the country will • be less vulnerable to disruption • The rise of ‘the clubhouse’
The 15 Minute City A concept being developed by Prof. Carlos Moreno at The Sorbonne • Melbourne has previously developed the 20 Minute concept • Now highly topical – everything we need to live, work and play within 15 minutes’ • walk from home Multi-purpose buildings – one building, with many applications. How to use a • school in the evening and at weekends? We don’t want to oblige people to stay within a 15 minute village, we want better • urban organisation
The lessons from Milan in 1570s – translated to now Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala’s pilot project ‘rethinking the rhythms of the city’ • offer services and quality of life within the space of 15 minutes from home • The mass global shift to working from home makes the multi-hour commute appear wasteful • Anne Hidalgo Mayor of Paris ‘Paris Respire’ • Have we seen this before? Utopia, the Garden City Movement …. • New Lanark, Saltaire, Port Sunlight, Bourneville – industrial villages housing the workers of a single employer • Telegraph, phone, internet – every time there has been new technology the predicted shift from the city to the countryside • has not happened Cities are ‘hot houses’ of learning, technology and competition – FOMO! •
Closer to Home How to make your home green - retrofit your house is very difficult • Small gains – technology will create efficiencies • New housing – focus on energy efficiency not eco bling • Zero carbon home, recycles energy • The importance of technology – the next wave of unicorn companies are likely to be • those that solve the problems of battery storage and energy efficiency. This will be translated into building technology and design – as building materials • change so will the appearance of our homes
New Homes • Modular construction – built in a factory; assembled on site • Embedded technology – bricks and tiles will be solar panels • High quality manufacturing standards for our housing with minimum waste including intelligent energy capture and retention technologies to mitigate the growing burden of energy purchase and maintenance cost on domestic households • Change in layouts – Covid 19 has already seen a shift away from open plan • Tigh Grian – house of the sun; BREEAM, Watford show house • The heart of any Tigh Grian project is the volumetric unit; a singe unit comprising a single bedroom flat or hostel room, or a combination of units forming a 2,3 or 4 bedroom house. • Affordability and sustainability - reduces end to end construction time by half • Pack it up and take it away with you when you move
Some Case Studies University of Sunderland – x2 city centre campuses; rationalisation of the estate • Sunderland Sixth Form College – relocation; new fit for purpose campus • HMRC Kenton Bar – offices to residential; WWII bunker preserved • Fulwell Abattoir – new homes • North Shields Fish Quay – a plan for the future • Ponteland Residents – advising on impact of development at Dinnington Park • Longhirst Hall – new uses for redundant buildings • Northumbria University – campus redevelopment • Prudhoe Hospital – new uses for listed buildings in the countryside • Sunderland – World Heritage Site? St Peter’s and St Bede’s Jarrow •
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