September 15, 2014

How we travel to work has enormous impact on wellbeing, claims new research

Part of London’s planned cycling infrastructure around Parliament Square

New research has further highlighted the important role that the mode of transport we choose to get work has on our physical and psychological wellbeing. Walking or cycling to work is better for people’s mental health than driving to work, according to the research by health economists at the University of East Anglia and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR). The report ‘Does active commuting improve psychological wellbeing?’ was published today in the journal Preventive Medicine and draws on 18 years of data from 18,000 people. It follows on the heels of two other reports published last month in the British Medical Journal and Science Direct which make related claims about the careful choices we should make about how we get to work.

September 2, 2014

Office planting improves workers’ quality of life and productivity finds study

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

Claims by office designers and suppliers that office planting has wider health benefits for occupiers than just making the place look more attractive have been given a boost in a new academic study which provides some empirical evidence. In the first field study of its kind, researchers found enriching a ‘lean’ office with plants could increase productivity by as much as 15 per cent. The study, which involved academics from the University of Exeter; the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, and the University of Queensland, Australia examined the impact of ‘lean’ and ‘green’ offices on staff’s perceptions of air quality, concentration, and workplace satisfaction, and monitored productivity levels over subsequent months in two large commercial offices in the UK and The Netherlands. It concludes that ‘green’ offices with plants make staff happier and more productive than ‘lean’ designs stripped of greenery. More →

August 14, 2014

Sustainable buildings are not more costly to construct, finds report

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

The widely held belief that sustainable buildings are more costly to construct is dispelled in a new report which shows that achieving lower BREEAM ratings can in fact, incur little or no additional cost. Researchers from Sweett Group and BRE examined the actual costs and savings associated with a wide range of sustainable building strategies. The research team applied cost data from real construction projects to three case study buildings – an office, secondary school and community healthcare centre – to produce detailed capital and operational cost information. The report; Delivering sustainable buildings: Savings and payback also reveals the associated payback to be gained from reduced utility costs and finds that even where achieving higher BREEAM ratings incurs some additional costs, this can be paid back within two to five years through the reduced costs of operating a more sustainable building. More →

July 22, 2014

Corporate social reponsibility remains a vital part of the business armoury

by Mark Sait • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Insight promotion

There is now an unstoppable energy for radical change in the way that companies of all sizes conduct their Corporate Social Responsibility duties. There are compelling economic and social reasons for companies to construct new ways of thinking and practice around CSR that go way beyond just doing something worthy or nice, from building effective partnerships to attracting top employees. Some companies prefer terms like ‘corporate responsibility’, ‘corporate conscience’, ‘corporate citizenship’, ‘social performance’, ‘sustainability’ or even ‘future-proofing’ over CSR. But the core CSR principles are that a business voluntarily commits to embracing responsibility for its actions and to impacting positively on the environment, on society and on consumers, employees and other stakeholders. More →

July 22, 2014

BIFM survey reveals lukewarm approach to sustainable facilities management

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News

Sustainable facilities management A new report from the British Institute of Facilities Management reveals the lukewarm approach many UK organisations have to sustainable business practices generally and sustainable FM in particular. The study, based on online research carried out in the Spring with the University of Reading found that, while an overall majority (60 percent) of facilities managers think sustainability is effectively integrated in to their businesses, most operate on the ‘border of compliancy’. The report makes this conclusion based on the fact that its survey showed that over three quarters of respondents (78 percent) claimed that the main driver for the development of sustainability policies is corporate image and a similar proportion (77 percent). The report concludes that this ‘suggests a ‘box-ticking’ approach to sustainability instead of businesses embracing and investing in longer-term practices and the advantages of spending to save’.

July 15, 2014

Climate committee exposes limited progress on energy efficiency of buildings

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News

In its latest progress report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the statutory body set up to advise the government on meeting long-term carbon goals, says that progress has been limited in energy efficiency improvement in the commercial and industrial sectors and previous good progress in residential energy efficiency fell away with the new policy regime in 2013.While there are specific examples of organisations that have made progress, much potential remains unexploited. This is because the policy landscape is complex and has mixed incentives. It recommends that policies should be simplified to lower administrative costs while, at the same time, improving delivery. There is a need to strengthen incentives and at the same time rationalise the number of policy instruments, leading to lower administrative costs as well as better delivery. More →

July 7, 2014

Green building design ‘goes mainstream’ in major US cities

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, News, Property, Workplace design

Minneapolis – the home of US green building design

It’s not just Europe that is experiencing an explosion of interest in green building design. According to a new report from CBRE and Maastricht University, the past ten years have seen a transformation in the way the US corporate real estate market approaches the environmental performance of buildings. According to the National Green Building Adoption Index for 2014, produced by CBRE there has been a remarkable increase in the application of green building standards in the thirty most important regional commercial property markets in the US. Based on data from the US Green Building Council, the number of office buildings which are LEED* or Energy Star** certified has surged since 2005. The proportion of LEED certified buildings in America now stands at 5 percent, up from under 0.5 percent over the course of the survey period. The total proportion of office space which now has some form of green accreditation is just under a fifth.

July 3, 2014

EU sustainable building proposals will raise green credentials of property

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News

EU proposals to raise the sustainability of new and renovated buildings by increasing resource efficiency and improving information on their environmental performance have been welcomed by the World Green Building Council. Under the proposals, set out in Communication “Resource efficiency opportunities in the building sector”, builders, architects, product manufacturers, or anyone wanting to rent or buy a building will have access to better information about its environmental performance. The Commission will develop a framework for assessing environmental performance with the aim of providing a tool which can be used across Europe, by both private actors and public authorities in the development of sustainable building stock. The first set of indicators should be available in two to three years. Efforts to recycle construction and demolition waste, and to re-use it when constructing new buildings or renovating existing ones, will also be made easier under the plans.

June 18, 2014

Lack of joined up thinking hampers efforts to reduce commercial property energy consumption

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

A new report commissioned by the Green Construction Board, Property Industry Alliance and UK Government claims that efforts to tackle energy consumption in commercial property and reduce the associated emissions of greenhouse gases needs a new approach to the way policies are understood, monitored and enforced. The warnings come in a paper produced by Deloitte which suggests that while the associated potential for savings and a wide range of environmental and economic benefits are beyond question and the Government has the will to make them happen, there is a lack of cohesive thinking in current policies and legislation coupled with a shortfall in innovation and investment. When the report was commissioned last year, it was done so on the basis that buildings remain the UK’s largest contributor to carbon emissions, with energy use in non-domestic buildings accounting for 17 per cent of the total.

June 4, 2014

Property sector calls for introduction of mandatory energy standards

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

Ahead of the Queen’s Speech today, business leaders from some of the UK’s biggest property owners, developers and occupiers are urging the Government to end the “prevarication” around the introduction of mandatory energy standards for privately rented commercial buildings, amid concerns there is “significant opposition” to them within the Coalition. The UK Green Building Council has released the text of a letter sent to Prime Minister David Cameron by the heads of major companies including Legal and General, Whitbread, Land Securities and Marks & Spencer on the Government’s proposed minimum energy performance standards (MEPS). It argues that commercial buildings are responsible for around one fifth of the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions. More →

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 →

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.