Only 31% of London’s office buildings are rated EPC C or higher, research by Carter Jonas has found. It presents a huge challenge for the capital’s property owners in the drive to reach net zero carbon.
London investor and developer and Carter Jonas client GPE is in the process of decarbonising its £2.38bn office portfolio. Executive Director Dan Nicholson and Sustainability and Social Impact Director Janine Cole discuss the business’s approach and the question of new build vs refurbishment.
Subscribe to Commercial Journal to receive content like this directly to your inbox
ISSUE 04 | OCT 2023
“a new build development will no longer be an entirely new building because increasingly developments like French Railways House are reusing a lot of material.”
UP NEXT:
University of Oxford
National Commercial Development
Lessons in reducing carbon
Tenacity, technology, and development opportunities
GPE aims to reach net zero by 2030 and bring all existing buildings in the portfolio to EPC B in anticipation of changes in
legislative requirements.
The portfolio ranges in age from brand new to Georgian buildings, and, as of April 2023, 43.4% is EPC B or above, far above the 7.35% for office buildings in London as a whole, according to Carter Jonas’s research (read more in Offices: Past, Present and Future. The Sustainability of Office Stock in the UK).
Janine Cole, GPE
SUBSCRIBE
Dan Nicholson
EMAIL DAN
SUBSCRIBE
Recycle and reuse:
CONTACT:
how GPE is meeting net zero targets across its portfolio
But EPC is only part of the story. Cole says: “EPC’s only measure the potential energy efficiency of the building, as it stands, there is no regulation that supports the actual energy performance of buildings in use. However, this is arguably more important and is especially so for our customers.”
GPE’s target is to reduce the energy intensity of buildings (kWh/m2/year) by 40% by 2030 and reduce embodied carbon by the same amount.
“Not only are we doing this from a moral perspective, there's a strategic imperative for us as a business to take this through,” says Nicholson. “Our customers have very ambitious sustainability strategies. When customers look to rent space, we need to be providing best-in-class workspaces that reflect those ambitions.”
To successfully measure carbon reduction, you need to know the existing carbon footprint – embodied and operational. Meticulous gathering of clean and accurate data has been critical to establishing what retrofit work is necessary.
Every building is different, so Cole approaches it like an equation, working out the components of the overall carbon emissions to determine what is required to deliver net zero.
“In some cases, that will be new lighting, building management, or metering systems,” she says. “In other buildings, it'll be insulation or replacement windows; or, in some cases, it might be all of
those things.”
From that, the capital required is determined, and a timeline
is plotted.
Given the range in age of buildings in the portfolio, GPE isn’t alone in grappling with building new vs refurbishment and which is the most sustainable, while always ensuring that the end-product is attractive and functional for the customer. “Retention is always our initial assumption, to see what can be reused when we are looking to recycle a building. It is however a difficult decision, as the margins are often fine, and often hard to support with data in a planning application context. It’s a piece the industry needs to somehow get to grips with but it's going to be very difficult,” says Nicholson.
One of its current projects is French Railways House on Piccadilly in the West End. The developer undertook a whole life cycle carbon assessment of the 1960s building, comparing refurbishment and what elements could be retained and reused against a full rebuild. Commercial considerations were added to the equation: how useable would it be in each scenario?
New buildings vs reuse
To all intents and purposes, what has been settled on is a new build. But while it might look brand new from the outside, it’s being built using as much recycled material as possible.
“I think this will become increasingly common, a new build development will no longer be an entirely new building because increasingly developments like French Railways House are reusing a lot of material,” says Cole.
The result is a development with the same reduced embodied carbon as a refurbishment but a building that's much more usable for modern businesses.
It’s not easy to do and requires a skilled team and collaboration. It’s also currently more expensive and takes longer, but this “foray into the unknown” is something of which Nicholson is proud.
At a recent round table, GPE joined other developers to discuss how construction materials could be reused more easily.
“GPE absolutely wanted to be right at the cutting edge of these things,” says Nicholson. “And the natural evolution of what we've done is that in a few years, you will have a market for recycled building materials, which have passed safety and functionality tests and are suitable for reuse.”
It moves construction towards a circular economy, making easier the delivery of modern, functional buildings in a sustainable manner.
Read more:
SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
Sustainability of the Office
The future of UK’s
office stock
“it’s always refreshing to see how ready people are to share challenges as well as successes. That way we get there quicker.”
Janine Cole, GPE
“Some things you can do now, some you have to wait for,” says Nicholson. “Changing lighting, for example, you've got to do that when an occupier comes out of the space before the next customer moves in.”
“At an industry level, energy metering is an issue. We’re unravelling it for our portfolio but it's absolutely fundamental for the industry to deliver on its net zero carbon targets” adds Cole.
An area GPE is exploring is reusing and recycling materials not only within a building but from others.
The existing foundations and basement have been kept, and 700 tonnes of steel are being recycled from another of its developments, 2 Aldermanbury Square in the City. Reusing this steel has saved 1,000 tonnes of carbon at French Railways House.
“I hesitate to call it ‘eBay for construction’, but I look forward to it absolutely becoming de rigueur,” he adds.
GPE’s next project is the 140,000 sq. ft Minerva House in Southwark. Ten years ago, the strategy would have been to demolish and rebuild but now it will be a comprehensive refurbishment retaining and reusing as much of the building as possible. The building will also be highly energy efficient and is targeting a BREEAM
Outstanding rating.
While London’s office owners and developers are competing for customers, talking and collaborating is critical to meeting net zero targets ahead of the deadline.
In this, Cole has found like-minded businesses and the power of that can’t be underestimated: “I spend such a lot of time with my peers – Derwent London, British Land, LandSec - sharing knowledge and learnings and talking about stuff that's keeping us up at night, it’s always refreshing to see how ready people are to share challenges as well as successes. That way we get there quicker.”
Janine Cole
EMAIL JANINE
University of Oxford
National Commercial Development
Lessons in reducing carbon
Tenacity, technology, and development opportunities
Sustainability of the Office
The future of UK’s
office stock
Read more:
SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
University of Oxford
National Commercial Development
Lessons in reducing carbon
Tenacity, technology, and development opportunities
Sustainability of the Office
The future of UK’s
office stock
“And the natural evolution of what we've done is that in a few years, you will have a market for recycled building materials, which have passed safety and functionality tests and are suitable for reuse.”
Dan Nicholson, GPE
GPE is a FTSE 250 Real Estate Investment Trust specialising in investment and development of
property in central London.
Find out more:
GPE website
GPE Twitter: @GPE_London
GPE LinkedIn
About GPE
ISSUE 04 | OCT 2023
SUBSCRIBE