Search Results for: investments

Property investors favour sustainable buildings, claims report

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

sustainable buildingsProperty owners could make a greater return on their investments if they improved the sustainable credentials of their buildings, according to a new report published by CBRE. According to the study of 280 investors published in the Investor Intentions Survey 2015, a growing number are taking into account environmental considerations which they consider have a direct influence on the returns and value of their assets. Nearly three-quarters (70 percent) believe sustainability is either a critical or desirable criterion when making investment decisions with only 15 percent claiming that “sustainability is not a significant consideration in selecting assets to buy”. The report’s authors claim that while the property industry has been seeking evidence of the financial benefits of sustainable buildings for some time, this has been difficult to define given the complex factors that influence transaction prices.

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Record uptake of London office space continues…but at a price

by • News, Property, Technology

office spaceTake up of leased office space in London has hit its highest level since 2000, claims a new report from BNP Paribas Real Estate. The recorded level of 4.49 million sq. ft. during the final quarter of 2014 was driven by serviced office operators and occupiers in the technology, media and telecoms sectors. TMT firms accounted for just under a third (31 percent) of the market in Q4 and 24 percent for the whole year. However the market is still characterised by a mismatch of supply and demand which means not only low vacancy rates in key business districts but also sustained upward pressure on rents.  The average office rent per square metre in the City of London has risen by 17 per cent from £560 to £655. In the prime parts of the West End rents have jumped 8 percent over the year to £1092 per square metre.

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Investors priced out of London commercial property turn to regions

by • Cities, News, Property

Glasgow commercial propertyAccording to a report from Reuters, foreign competition in the London commercial property market is forcing local investors to invest in regional cities to tap rising rents there, with many making purchases privately to avoid auctions or even building office blocks from scratch. Commercial property in London has become a popular safe haven for investors from places such as Russia, China and southern Europe as a result of the financial crisis, and office prices have bounced back strongly from the lows. From a $4 billion battle for control of the Canary Wharf financial district to the creation of the capital’s tallest building, The Shard, thanks to oil money from the Gulf, many of London’s landmarks have had a helpful overseas financing hand.

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Nearly two-thirds of over 50s say flexible working is best route to retirement

by • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Nearly two-thirds of over 50s say part time working is the best way to retireAround half of over 50s would like to carry on working part time after 65, while 39 per cent of feel that working part time or flexible hours before stopping work altogether would be the best way to retire. According to new research, one in four over 50s said they would be interested in taking a few months off and then returning to work as an alternative to retirement. Meanwhile 36 percent of retirees say their advice to others would be to consider switching to flexible or part time work for a period first before retiring and 33 per cent of over 70s still working said they did so because they enjoyed it. However the poll also reveals some discrimination, with 23 percent of over 50s believing they are viewed ‘less favourably than younger workers’ and 15 per cent experiencing age-based discrimination in the workplace.

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We all need to embrace the opportunities presented by BIM

by • Architecture, Comment, Technology, Workplace design

contemporary-reception-desk-66059-2171731Described as ‘key to growth in the sector’ by chief construction adviser, Peter Hansford and increasingly recognised as a much more collaborative and efficient way of working, Building Information Modelling (BIM) continues to gather supporters from across the industry, yet there is a percentage of people who are still keeping their heads down and hoping it will all just go away. Maybe it’s the required element of investment or maybe it’s the small matter of change itself – always a difficult one for the construction industry – but there is still an amount of SMEs who are shrinking away from BIM, despite the fact that it is destined to become the established way.

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CIPD claims 2015 should be a ‘rollover year’ for workplace productivity

by • News

workplace productivityThe UK labour market will continue to expand at a strong rate in 2015 but there are unresolved issues relating to levels of pay and how best to increase workplace productivity to drive further growth, according to Mark Beatson, chief economist for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in a new report. While the report argues that the ongoing economic recovery and improvements in the labour market are good news for jobseekers and good news for businesses, it also considers it unlikely that we’ll see any real increase in wage growth until 2016. The author also warns that the UK’s steady growth remains vulnerable to developments in Europe and that the UK’s ‘workplace productivity puzzle’ is an urgent issue for policy makers and businesses to address in order to sustain growth.

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Focus of investment should be skills, broadband and local transport say CEOs

by • News, Property, Public Sector, Technology

Dear SantaThe Government should focus investment on the development of skills and broadband if it wants to drive economic growth. That is the message from a survey of 100 British CEOs carried out by Grant Thornton. Key findings of the report include the fact that 70 percent of respondents would like to see better access to training and development opportunities, 59 percent want to see an improvement in digital infrastructure and 57 percent would like more spending on roads. The Government’s flagship schemes – the Heathrow expansion, HS2 and the proposed new trans-Pennine railway receive a lukewarm response, with the majority of respondents appearing more keen on greater investment in existing long distance rail services, local public transport networks and the greater use of the UK’s underutilised regional airports. There is also a mixed response to plans for greater devolution with support only if regional Governments don’t add another layer of bureaucracy for businesses.The report has been published ahead of next week’s Autumn Statement by Chancellor George Osborne.

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Commercial property market sees significant shift in attitudes to green building

by • Environment, Legal news, News, Property

commercial propertyThe UK commercial property market is experiencing a major attitudinal shift towards green buildings according to GVA’s fifth Green to Gold report. The biannual survey questions commercial property investors on their understanding of market perceptions of the value of sustainability criteria and gauges their attitudes towards regulation and related issues. The latest edition of the study published this month claims that the market ‘no longer views sustainability as a nice to have’ with more than half of those questioned considering green building credentials as a key driver of investment performance. Perhaps unsurprisingly this belief strengthens with regard to longer term investments. The research also found that nearly all (94 percent) of those surveyed now had a sustainability policy in place at either the organisational or fund level and 59 percent of respondents said that three quarters of their portfolios have been assessed against sustainability criteria, compared with just a quarter in 2012.

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EU institutions are not implementing their own green building policies

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Public Sector

Green building at the EUAccording to a report on EU news site euractiv.com, the various institutions of the European Union have been ‘unambitious’ in terms of delivering energy efficiency as part of their own buildings strategies. That is the key finding of a new study from the European Court of Auditors. which claims that green building standards and initiatives developed and promoted by the EU are not consistently employed for new buildings or as part of major renovation projects carried out by bodies such as the European Commission, European Parliament, EU Council and other institutions. The special report reveals shortcomings in the approach of these bodies, calls on the EU Commission to propose a common policy for reducing the carbon footprint of EU institutions and bodies and proposes the setting of an overall reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. The report claims that it is through the design processes of a new building, or for a major renovation, that the greatest impact can be made on its energy performance and this should be the focus of its proposed new approach.

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We’ve long had ‘overwhelming evidence’ for the link between office design and productivity

by • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

office designPerhaps the most widely reported news from the world of workplace over the last couple of weeks has been the analysis from the World Green Building Council that links office design with productivity and wellness. And the two words from the report that have featured most commonly in the associated stories’ headlines have been ‘overwhelming evidence’. While this has been repeated as if it’s some kind of revelation, the truth is that we have had compelling and overwhelming evidence for many years, and barely a year goes past without some study or other making the same point in no uncertain terms. Each report merely serves to raise a more interesting question; given the sheer body of work linking the workplace with productivity (and happiness and motivation and so on), why does the argument still need to be made?

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Business leaders seem powerless to stem tide of always on working, claims report

by • News, Technology, Workplace

Always on workingAmongst the reported findings in the latest edition of the annual Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey is a growing belief amongst business leaders that information overload and the always on working culture are significantly undermining personal wellbeing, engagement and productivity. This challenge has been identified before in the same report, but the latest edition perhaps signals that despite the high level of awareness of the issue at both a personal and general level, little is being achieved in terms of stemming the inexorable erosion of personal time. The report is based on a survey of more than 2,500 business leaders. It found that over a third think that constant access to work is undermining employee productivity and engagement and fewer than one in ten feel they are dealing with the problem adequately. (more…)

Three ways in which politicians display their ignorance of the workplace

by • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Workplace bubbleThe recent Cabinet reshuffle in the UK Government won’t alter one fact; politicians simply don’t get it when it comes to technology, the workplace, the way people work and the needs of small businesses. Once you dismiss the paranoid idea that they DO get it but don’t care because they’re too busy looking out for The Man, you have to conclude that one of the big problems they have (this won’t go where you think) is that they don’t understand anything about technology and work, especially when it comes to emerging technology, the working lives of individuals, the needs and functions of small businesses and the fact the self-employed exist at all. These things exist outside the bubble. This is obviously a problem because they are implementing policies and making big, uninformed and anachronistic decisions about the things that shape every aspect of our lives, help to define us as people and determine how companies and individuals function. Here are just three examples.

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