June 3, 2014

New guidance published on greening the building supply chain

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News

A major new report on the building and construction sector, “Greening the Building Supply Chain”, has been launched by the United Nations Environment Programme’s Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative (UNEP-SBCI). The report notes that while the need to understand and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from buildings during their operation has become increasingly recognized, efforts related to the resource use in the building supply chain appear to be less advanced. For that reason the scope of the report, co-authored by Skanska, UNEP and IMS Consulting, extends beyond the well-established benefits associated with green buildings themselves (such as energy efficiency). Instead it is intended to help stakeholders better understand resource use in the building and the construction supply chain as a whole, and identify opportunities to promote greater resource efficiency in the sector as well as and contribute towards wider socio-economic goals. More →

June 2, 2014

How Adolf Hitler’s desk came to be modified and used for another fifty years

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Furniture, News

It would have been a bit early for Christmas anyway, but German authorities who have identified the desk Hitler used while working in the Reichkanzlei during the War say it isn’t for sale, despite the fact it would be valued at tens of thousands of pounds to a specialist collector. In 2014, The Associated Press issued a picture of the desk which was made in 1937 and used in a US military base in Berlin up until 1996. Facilities managers being who they are, when it was handed back to the German authorities it had been modified with fax and telephone connectors. The desk is now kept away from the public gaze in a storeroom in Weissensee near Berlin and Germany says it will never be sold, even though it would prove a very attractive acquisition for collectors of militaria. ‘The desk is, and remains, the property of the Federal Republic,’ said government spokeswoman Jacqueline Besse. However, a piece of another desk belonging to Hitler was sold recently.

May 29, 2014

New tenants reflect strong demand for office accommodation on Regent Street

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

In one of the most substantial West End lettings this year, global asset and investment manager, Tudor Capital Europe LLP is to locate its new UK headquarters to Crown Estate’s 10 New Burlington Street development. The firm will move into some 40,000 sq ft across two floors at the £250m redevelopment, which forms part of Regent Street’s £1 billion regeneration. This follows on from a 30,000 sq ft letting to Ares Management at the same building. The addition of Tudor Capital Europe to the line-up at 10 New Burlington Street means the office element (around 100,000 sq ft) is 75 per cent let at completion. The move illustrates strong demand for office accommodation on Regent Street, where office take up rose by 90 per cent in the 12 months prior to March 2014, compared to an increase of 31 per cent over the wider West End in the same time span. More →

May 28, 2014

Barangaroo South Tower 2 in Sydney is now Oz’s greenest large office building

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

One of Sydney’s landmark new office towers has just been awarded a 6Star Green Star –Office Design V3 rating, the Green Building Council of Australia’s highest environmental accreditation. South Tower 2 in Barangaroo South is part of a $6 billion carbon-neutral development alongside Sydney Harbour. The 42 storey skyscraper is part of a three commercial building cluster in Barangaroo South called International Towers Sydney. Each of the buildings incorporates arrange of sustainable features including cooling systems using water from the harbour and solar shading. The buildings also make use of the development’s shared environmental features including an on-site backwater treatment plant which will recycle up to one million litres of water a day for use by the local community. The intention is to create a world class sustainable community in the city.

May 23, 2014

Workplace design and management of TMT sector aped by other firms

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, Property, Technology, Workplace design

The publication of a report last week by the British Council for Offices highlights the wider impact of workplace design trends and commercial property arrangements in the increasingly important Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) sector. Not least it suggests that they are having a transformational influence on the way firms in other sectors approach leases, workplace design and the changing nature of work. It is no coincidence that the TMT sector is the one most commonly associated with the employment of the much-talked-about Gen Y demographic, nor that the business practices most commonly associated with this overly-stereotyped group are those that are having the greatest influence in the way we design and manage offices.

May 21, 2014

Homeworking has environmental benefits, says Carbon Trust

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, News

There have been some doubts cast recently on the environmental benefits of flexible working. At the recent ThinkFM conference, Lord Rupert Redesdale, the CEO Energy Managers Association said that keeping buildings open for longer to accommodate flexible workers could become unfeasible for many businesses. But what if you simply increase the numbers of home workers instead? Homeworking reduces employee commuting, resulting in carbon, money and time savings. If office space is properly rationalised to reflect this, homeworking can also significantly reduce office energy consumption and rental costs. This is according to new research from the Carbon Trust, which found that if adopted and encouraged by employers across the country, homeworking could result in annual savings of over 3 million tonnes of carbon and cut costs by £3 billion.

May 20, 2014

Office design should meet the basic human needs of workers, claims report

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Furniture, News, Workplace design

Designers can install sleep pods, slides and play areas in an effort to create a cool office, but the problem is that for every renowned Google campus are countless stuffy offices with fluorescent lighting and cramped, crowded conditions. When you drill right down to it office workers want those responsible for office design to meet their basic human needs; with more natural light, effective heating and air conditioning and the better use of office space. This is according to the results of a survey by Steelcase of more than 800 office workers across the UK to mark the beginning of Clerkenwell Design Week. It found that despite British workers appreciating the latest technology and high-quality office design, better lighting and more control over temperature settings would be a big step forward towards their dream office.

May 19, 2014

Loss making design and build service withdrawn by MITIE Group

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Facilities management, News

Diversified facilities management services business Mitie has announced it is no longer to provide design and build services in the energy sector and will no longer provide mechanical and electrical (M&E) services. It has announced in its preliminary results for the year to March 2014 that the withdrawal of both operations will incur substantial losses – £25.4 million and £22.1 million respectively – so it will now concentrate more closely on its core and more lucrative facilities management markets instead where it sees the ‘potential for growth and [to] meet our margin targets’. While the firm reports that a number of design and build projects had experienced delays and cost overruns which led to substantial losses, results for the whole of MITIE group show pre-tax profit up 4.3 per cent to £113.3m with revenue up 8.2 per cent to £2.14 billion.

May 16, 2014

Facilities managers beaten to coveted place in boardroom by a piece of software

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Technology

Machines and boardrooms don’t mix well

It has always been the ambition of facilities managers to take their place in the boardroom. Yet, after thirty years of trying, with only the occasional cursory glimpse of the C-Suite, it appears they have been beaten to it by a piece of software. A venture capital firm called Deep Knowledge Ventures has appointed a computer algorithm to its board of directors. This is either the shape of things to come or a gimmick*, but the software will have a vote on whether the speculators will invest in a particular business or not. The software, called Vital, won’t be making judgements on gut instinct but will take the non-visceral route of chewing through huge amounts of data before coming to a conclusion.

*It’s a gimmick.

May 16, 2014

BCO office standards include guidance on provisions for cyclists for first time

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace design

The new edition to the British Council for Offices’ Guide to Specification, which provides guidance on industry standards for workplaces across the UK will contain guidance on provisions for cyclists for the first time. The new 2014 edition to the office standards guide due for publication later in the year, recommends one shower per ten cycle spaces and one cycle space per 100m2, reflecting the evolving face of travel to and from the office environment. Another significant change is to the recommended workplace density, which has been reviewed to take into account the ever more diverse way businesses are now using their workspaces; which includes the adoption of more flexible working patterns. The report states that: “Considering workplace density alone may overstate the demands placed on building infrastructure, or result in over provision if used as the basis for design.”

May 14, 2014

HR and Facilities Management bodies to collaborate on future of workplace

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Workplace

One of the main themes at the ThinkFM conference yesterday was the acknowledgement that facilities management and HR need to break down the silos that often exist between the two disciplines. This was the message of Chris Kane, CEO of BBC Commercial Properties, who explained that the British Institute of Facilities Management will be collaborating with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development on a number of projects to investigate how both communities of professionals are evolving and adapting to the changing workplace. It marked the end of a conference which began the day with a talk by Peter Cheese, the CEO of the CIPD, who remarked that both professions were in the business of getting the most of people in the working environment and why it is vital that those tasked with managing these key resources within organisations need to work together to maximise the value of its workforce. More →

May 14, 2014

World’s most energy efficient office retro-fit opens in Norway

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, News

What is claimed to be the world’s most energy efficient office building has been opened in Norway. Powerhouse Kjørbo in Oslo is Norway’s first energy-positive building and the, according to its developers, the first in the world to be retro-fitted to produce more energy than it consumes. The building is part of the Powerhouse project, a collaboration between a range of organisations with an interest in developing and promoting energy efficient office buildings. The Powerhouse consortium defines an energy-positive building as any building which generates more clean and renewable energy in its operational phase than was used in its construction and lifetime, including materials, operation and disposal.