Energy Management
Carbon is the new currency
For many companies, real estate is the single biggest asset that they own, and yet it can be easily overlooked when it comes
to strategic planning. However, a combination of changing legislation, strict new statutory requirements, and an increasing awareness of green issues is making it more important than ever to ensure that this asset is managed and reported on properly.
For example, many businesses may be unaware that any new additions to their property portfolio will need to be fully compliant with emerging environmental legislation, especially with regard to carbon reduction. In many cases, these requirements can actually be quite difficult to satisfy, since older real estate can be impractical to refurbish, whilst large- scale upgrades can actually increase a company’s carbon footprint.
The need to reduce carbon emissions is already driving design in real estate, and is quickly becoming the currency that’s being used to assess new designs as well as renovation
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Tim Clapham, Marketing Director at Planon explains why. energy performance.
projects. ‘Whole life carbon’ is already replacing conventional methods of assessing both new properties and refurbishments, which means that novel tools are required to make these judgements, based on reliable information and data that show how facilities are actually performing.
As businesses begin to sharpen their focus on issues like these, their strategies and policies will require an increasingly proactive response from their corporate real estate and facilities management functions and personnel. However, in today’s ultra- competitive market, decisions like these need to be made using the best possible information and data, and computer aided facility management (CAFM) has a vital role to play in this regard.
The role of energy
performance One of the greatest challenges facing businesses today is the need to upgrade their real estate to comply with the latest environmental regulations, regardless of what industry they’re in or the value of their property portfolio. In other words, even companies that are at the high (or ‘prime’) end of the market for real estate are not immune to rising standards and tougher legislation concerning
Newly constructed commercial properties already have to comply with higher standards of energy efficiency as a matter of course, whilst existing real estate will need to be upgraded. At the moment, just 2% of real estate is less than five years old, and almost 90% of what exists now will still be here in 2050. As a result, some estimates suggest that more than 80% of all commercial and industrial buildings are currently in need of some form of upgrading.
What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that refurbishment projects like these often lead to increases in energy use and, as a result, higher carbon emissions. Refurbishment can also impose greater demands on infrastructure, such as utilities and transportation, as well as servicing, since there are likely to be a higher number of occupants and other users as a result of projects like these.
A holistic assessment will therefore be needed on a case-by-case basis in order to prevent the creation of sub-optimal schemes. After all, new legislation related to planning is only likely to tighten the rules in this area even further, which means that schemes failing to take these wider considerations into account will be denied approval. In some cases, this
is beginning to happen already. Continued on Page 52...
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