September 21, 2015
Powering positive change theme for World Green Building Week 2015 0
The theme of this year’s World Green Building Week which runs from 21–25 September is Powering Positive Change. The week brings together Green Building Councils from around the world to create a public conversation about the role buildings play in a sustainable future. Hundreds of events worldwide with the aim of demonstrating global diversity and a collective mission to create sustainable built environments. This is achieved through a variety of activities – including workshops and panel discussions, exhibits and building tours. There are over 30 events in the UK and you can view a calendar of them here. The flagship International Climate Negotiations 2015: Catalysing Action on Buildings will look forward to the international climate negotiations in Paris (COP), and the role which the construction and property sector can play in delivering carbon cuts and supporting national commitments.
Large firms that occupy several separate floors in a prime office may need to pay tens of thousands of pounds more in rates, property managers have been warned. The decision by the UK Supreme Court on business rates in shared office buildings will lead to higher fees for many businesses in Scotland, according to commercial property experts at Colliers International. The firm says that the case of Woolway Valuation Office v Mazars, in which the Supreme Court held that businesses occupying space across several floors should pay separate rates for each, will lead to changes in valuations across the country that will cost firms millions of pounds. Up until now, such arrangements were charged as a “single occupation” and benefited from economies of scale. Paying for two separate sets of rates is likely to be more expensive, and the court decision even allows for the changes to be implemented retrospectively.
One of the most typical claims that suppliers in this sector make about their products is that they will make people more productive at work. Many go so far as to put numbers on what this means, and usually not just 0.4 percent or whatever but something far more. We can understand why they do this because they are seeking to link workplace productivity to whatever it is they have to sell. This is often tenuous for at least two reasons. The first is that even when such a causal link is demonstrably true, it still assumes that all other things at work are equal, whereas they never are because there are so many factors involved. That is why you will find some people cheerfully working in shabby, cluttered, underlit offices while others mope around unhappily in gilded cages with expensive chairs, soaring daylit atria and olive groves. The second is that such claims simply ignore what makes people tick.
Newly published research
September 21, 2015
Five essential office design trends to look for in the near future 0
by Tom Brialey • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design
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