Search Results for: sustain

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.

(more…)

July 2, 2014

RIBA calls on next Government to put built environment centre stage

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News, Property, Public Sector

A new report from The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) sets out a number of recommendations for the next UK Government and calls for greater economic leadership from English cities to rebalance the UK economy and take some of the pressure off London and the South East. RIBA’s report, Building Better Britain: A vision for the next Government, advises that by focusing on architecture and the built environment, the next Government will be better placed to address a sluggish economy, a shortage of new homes, an aging population and the effects of climate change. Building on the findings of the Farrell Review, the report is intended to provide policy makers with a greater understanding of the impact of how places are designed, planned and built and how they affect our day to day lives.

(more…)

June 16, 2014

Demand for London commercial property pushing occupiers into earlier relocations

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

The revival of London’s financial, professional and business sectors, along with sustained demand from the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecoms) market is resulting in increasing demand for commercial property across Central London. This along, with a restricted supply of existing stock, due to conversion of office to residential usage is prompting many occupiers into making relocation decisions well in advance of a lease break or expiry. Cluttons’ London Property outlook for the second quarter of this year shows that rental costs are increasing in response to sustained demand, with a west to east migration by occupiers in evidence. Many tenants are also relocating from London’s West End to the Southbank area; while further out, ‘fringe’ areas such as Stratford are drawing tenants. (more…)

June 6, 2014

IFMA & BIFM to discuss work and place at Workplace Strategy Summit

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News

Leading academics and experts in the fields of facility management and real estate are meeting to discuss the most innovative concepts to emerge in workplace strategy at the Workplace Strategy Summit, beginning this weekend at the Wokefield Park Conference Centre in Berkshire. The International Facility Management Association (IFMA), British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) and IFMA Foundation will come together from 8-10 June to discuss the themed “Innovation on the Edge.” The editorial team at Workplace Insight has produced a special issue of the Occupiers Journal, Work & Place featuring in depth articles, case studies and comments from some of the key speakers at the event. Paul Carder, publisher of Work & Place said: “As well as the journal’s obvious relevance to the creators and managers of places we were also keen to find subjects which are equally relevant to managers of the “work” process.”

(more…)

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.

(more…)

May 20, 2014

Design skills cited as one reason why London is the world’s best city

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Events, News, Workplace design

For the first time, London is the world’s best city for business, culture and finance, according to the latest edition of PWC’s annual Cities of Opportunity report. And the city’s reputation as a global leader in design is cited as one of the main reasons. The index of thirty of the world’s most important cities claims that London’s sheer economic clout, technological infrastructure and its design and development skills are just a few of the factors that led to the city usurping New York for the first time. When the survey was last carried out, it was ranked third. London is ranked one of the top three best places for intellectual capital and innovation alongside Paris and San Francisco and has leapt from eighth place last year to joint first place (with Seoul) in terms of its technological readiness.

(more…)

May 20, 2014

Trust in ethical behaviour is linked to the size of the business, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News

The larger the firm the less likely it is to trust its employees to behave ethically according to a new report from the Association of Accounting Technicians. The research also found that UK’s most ethical businesses are small architectural practices. According to the research, conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of AAT, only 37 per cent of SMEs trust their staff to do the right thing compared to 66 per cent of microbusinesses. The report also found that firms in the architectural sector have more faith in the ethical decision making of their employees and are more concerned about the ethical behaviour of suppliers than in any other industry. Interestingly, the report highlights the fact that, as the number of employees increases, businesses are more likely to dedicate a member of staff dedicated to fostering ethical behaviour and have a formal code of conduct.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

May 13, 2014

Workplace design, Facebook likes and the need of companies to be your friend

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

Companies put an awful lot of time and money into getting people to like them on social media these days. While it would be easy to see the like button on Facebook as the primary conduit for this corporate neediness, but it cuts across many aspects of the ways in which companies work, including their relationships with employees and the ways in which they develop new forms of workplace design and management. This is most evident in the tech palaces which are aimed at the same digital natives that firms habitually target with their online marketing, but the need to make customers and employees friends of the business cuts across a wide range of sectors. The workplace is yet another channel of communicating chumminess, and it offers many of the same challenges as social media.

(more…)

May 7, 2014

Green buildings may not enhance job satisfaction and performance, claims study

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

In March a report from the British Council for Offices appeared to show that people are happier and more productive when working in green buildings. But the idea that staff find greater job satisfaction when they work in environmentally friendly surroundings is challenged by a new study from researchers at the University of Nottingham and the Centre for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley. It found that, contrary to other research, people working in LEED certified buildings appear no more satisfied with the quality of their interior design and fit-out and may enjoy no more overall level of job satisfaction than those working in less green buildings. The research was carried out by Stefano Schiavon at Berkeley and Sergio Altomonte of the University of Nottingham and published in the April edition of Building and Environment.