Search Results for: sustain

June 10, 2016

Plans unveiled to double size of MediaCityUK over the next ten years ⁰

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

MediaCityUK, best known as the new home of the BBC, is to double in size over the next decade under ambitious plans submitted to Salford City Council. Up to ten new buildings are envisaged with a development value of more than £1 billion. Key features of phase two of MediaCityUK include 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) of offices, 1,800 apartments, retail and leisure, complemented by public spaces with a pedestrian promenade running through the scheme. Outline approval for the plans was granted in 2006. A condition of that permission was that detailed proposals, including all building designs and specifications, needed to be brought forward this year. The plans are expected to be considered by Salford’s planning panel in September. MediaCityUK is a joint venture between Peel Land and Property and Legal and General Capital, who share a long-term commitment to the further expansion of a creative and digital hub which already houses 250 businesses including the BBC, ITV, dock10, Ericsson and SIS.

June 8, 2016

Cities must lead the way in cutting carbon emissions says IEA ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Environment, Facilities management, News, Technology

With urban areas accounting for up to two-thirds of the potential to reduce global carbon emissions, cities must take the lead in the transition to low-carbon energy, says the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its annual report. Offering long-term pathways that could limit the global temperature increase to no more than 2°C, in line with the goals set at the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015, the report suggests that the most cost-effective approach involves deploying low-carbon options in cities, especially in emerging and developing economies. Because buildings provide useful space to self-generate the electricity they consume: by 2050, rooftop solar could technically meet one-third of electricity demand. Such buildings offer significant demand potential for the roll-out of the most efficient technologies, like energy-efficient windows and appliances. However, international collaboration is essential, claims the report.

May 27, 2016

Canary Wharf bucks London’s Brexit office market slow down ⁰

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

Canary Wharf has outperformed the Central London office market during the past 12 months, with rental growth reaching 26.7 percent, ahead of Mayfair and St James’. It seems Canary Wharf’s high quality purpose built space, coupled with its relative affordability when compared to the rest of London, has helped attract significant deals in recent months. The most notable deal during Q1 was Thomson Reuters take up of 300,000sq ft in St Martin’s 5 Canada Square. Faisal Durrani, Cluttons head of research, explained, “It was only a matter of time before the area began to draw in occupiers, particularly from the City and City fringes. It’s a market that has undersold itself and its full potential is yet to be realised but we may be approaching a significant turning point in its attractiveness. In recent months, the Central London market has experienced Brexit nervousness and general settling of the market but Canary Wharf has bucked this trend.”

May 25, 2016

Limited budgets greatest challenge to wellness programmes at work ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Sixty-five per cent of respondents in a new survey across Europe, the Middle East and Africa claim that stress and mental health are the health and wellness issues they are most concerned about. Fifty-three per cent say that employees’ physical health is the biggest issue, while unhealthy lifestyles are judged to be the biggest issue by 49 percent. However, according to the study from Aon, only 32 percent of employers have emotional or psychological health programmes in place and 69 percent say limited budgets are their biggest challenge. While 93 percent of employers see a correlation between health and employee performance, just 13 percent of respondents measure outcomes of health strategies. The findings pinpoint areas for improvement and make recommendations to increase health benefits take-up, improve measurement on the impact of health initiatives and to maximise the return on investment that firms make in employee health.

May 10, 2016

Alternate workplaces strategies explored as demand for US offices grows ⁰

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

The US national office market recovery slowed slightly in the first quarter of 2016 amid some volatility within the financial markets. However, as the financial markets stabilised later in the quarter, office based job growth accelerated, likely signalling stronger tenant demand in the months ahead, according to a new report from CBRE. Tech and healthcare companies continue to drive growth, resulting in a scarcity of creative space in many cities. Meanwhile, energy-dominated markets slowed further due to sustained low oil prices. Many companies continued to seek space in vibrant downtown and suburban areas near public transport links in order to attract talent. A tightening supply within the Class A market has resulted in tenants exploring well-located Class B properties and creative space, with tenants across geographies and industries exploring alternate workplaces strategies to maximise efficiencies and collaboration.

May 9, 2016

Public neither knows nor cares about the coming era of smart cities ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Technology

The smart city is the poster child for the new era of immersive digital living, but the British public remains ‘clueless or indifferent’ about the nature of smart cities and what they will mean for their lives, according to a new report entitled: Smart Cities – Time to involve the people published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. The report claims that only 18 per cent of the British public has heard of a ‘smart city’ and many are unaware that city-wide technologies could improve the quality of life in urban areas. One third of respondents were unable to select the correct definition of a smart city from a list of options. Eight per cent of respondents opted for “a city that has a higher than average proportion of universities and colleges and aims to attract the most intellectual”. And a further five per cent saw it as “a city that has a strict cleaning regime for its buildings, roads and public places”.

April 30, 2016

UK’s best workplaces + Great workplace puzzle + Digital future ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Technology, Wellbeing, Work&Place, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s Newsletter see the latest issue of Work&Place, which features Ian Ellison’s look at the workplace puzzle and what an esoteric Marxist French philosopher can teach us about workspace. Mark Eltringham says that despite debates about technology, culture, buildings and design – it all comes down to the human element; and Sara Bean finds that unlike men, when women start having children, they’re promotion and pay prospects suffers. In news, driverless vehicles will have a significant impact on the real estate sector; evidence that organisations which support mobile technology see a rise in productivity; and a new partnership aims to drive sustainable property development in Europe. The UK’s best workplaces are announced and a new study confirms that the digital future will mean a reliance on physical office space will recede. Download our Insight Briefing, produced in partnership with Connection, on the boundless office; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

April 25, 2016

Staff wellness programmes must target mental ill health and obesity ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Employers see mental health, obesity and high blood pressure as the areas most likely to impact on their employees’ wellbeing over the next few years. This is according to new research by AXA PPP healthcare, which found that three quarters of decision makers (75 per cent) agreed that employers should proactively support their employees to manage their health and wellbeing and why 77 per cent of employers said their company currently has a health and wellbeing strategy in place. The decision makers polled by the healthcare company are concerned that mental health (51 per cent), obesity/high body mass index (44 per cent) and high blood pressure (30 per cent) will be the biggest challenges to employee health over the next five years with the key to better health in the workplace in that period being improved ease of access (46 per cent) and increased availability (46 per cent) of preventive health services for employees.

April 22, 2016

LEED certified green buildings in Canada reach a significant milestone ⁰

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

LEED certified buildings in Canada have led to a cumulative reduction of over one million tonnes of CO2e in greenhouse gas emissions – the equivalent of taking 238,377 cars off the road for a year. Along with this milestone the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) announced that in the first quarter of 2016 it certified the 1000th LEED Gold project in Canada. LEED Gold, the second most rigorous level of certification, now makes up 38 per cent of all LEED certified projects in Canada – the highest percentage of all levels. This is evidence of the industry’s enhanced capability to achieve higher levels of building performance. Among the most notable projects that earned LEED certification in the first quarter of this year was the certified LEED Platinum TELUS Garden Office Tower in Vancouver, BC, a one million square foot development in the heart of downtown Vancouver that features one of Vancouver’s largest solar panel collections on the office’s rooftop.

April 11, 2016

What our enduring love of wooden office furniture tells us about how we work

by Paul Goodchild • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

As the office continues to evolve so too do the materials used within it. While many corporate headquarters make liberal use of brushed steel, aluminium and glass, an ancient, well loved and sustainable material is becoming increasingly popular all over again. Wood never went away, of course, but the latest ideas about office design seem to have given it a new lease of life as a material. In part this is down to an inherent love for wood, but it is also acknowledges the aesthetic and functional crossover between the office and other places where we work such as cafes, hotels and homes. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new generation of commercial office furniture designs. In many ways they hark back to the 1950s when the British were introduced to modernism in no uncertain terms. This design movement led the British to reject dark woods and embrace new forms and materials including lighter, arguably more natural woods.

April 5, 2016

Rise in number of virtual employers with remote teams of workers ⁰

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

When, where, and how people work has changed dramatically over the last ten years – telecommuting has grown 103 percent over in the US and an estimated that 50 percent of people will work remotely by 2020. While many companies have begun to integrate remote work, there is a growing trend for firms to fully embrace remote work as an integral part of their business. Virtual companies that operate with fully or heavily distributed workforces now come from many industries, including accounting, health, law, marketing, non-profit, news/media, sports, travel and others. However the best sectors to find a remote post are in Computer/IT, HR/Recruiting and Education; according to the third annual list of virtual companies compiled by FlexJobs. The diversity of companies represented in this year’s list, demonstrate that the remote work model can be applied regardless of company size and/or industry.

April 5, 2016

BIFM launches new guide to construction and design processes ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Facilities management, News, Technology

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has launched its new ‘Operational Readiness Guide: A guide to ensuring long term effectiveness in the design and construction process’. The guide aims to ‘equip facilities management professionals with the skills, knowledge and guidance to effectively engage at each stage of the design and construction process to deliver greater value to the end user organisations that occupy the buildings.’ Its launch coincides with the first day that centrally procured public sector projects in the UK will require the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) at Level 2. The authors claims that in order for FMs ‘to deliver long term effectiveness and relevance for the end user facilities management professionals need to be engaged from the start and learnings and insights from operators applied to close the gap between building design and performance’.