Refurb Projects - August 2016

SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability in practice
How do we improve our existing buildings?
By James Fisher, Existing Buildings Lead & Principal Consultant, BREEAM.
Investors and owners of large
commercial property portfolios
throughout Europe are
constantly on the hunt for a
distinctive edge that will set them
aside from the competition. The
never-ending battle for an increase
in rental yield, lower management
costs, fully leased properties and
happy tenants is something that we
are all too familiar with.
Couple that with some of the
wider global challenges on-going
presently and you can see that how
it would be easy for a property fund
or asset manager to lose a little
sleep at night. Luckily for them,
there are some new techniques and
tactics being adopted by the most
forward thinking property
companies that are
helping them
maintain their
commercial
advantage.
Citycon Oyj, based
in Helsinki, has
recently launched a
project to
introduce BREEAM
In-Use (BIU)
certification to
75% of its
properties by 2017.
As the leading
owner, developer
and manager of
urban groceryanchored
shopping
centres in the
Nordic and Baltic
regions, Citycon
clearly see BREEAM
In-Use certification
as a cost-effective
way to manage
their EUR 5 billion
portfolio.
According to Nils
Styf, Citycon’s
Chief Investment
Officer, BREEAM In-Use certificates
provide Citycon with a
comprehensive overview of the
environmental performance of their
portfolio and a useful platform to
identify improvements.
As a result of their recent
environmental focus, Citycon have
reduced their reliance on purchased
heating energy by an impressive
30% in 2015 for one Centre by using
renewable energy. Of course, this
also positively benefits their carbon
footprint too. Definitely a cost and
carbon win-win and of course, these
benefits can be realised in many
more of their properties over time.
Interestingly it is not only private
commercial organisations that are
seeing the opportunity presented by
using BREEAM certification. The
methodology has also been widely
adopted recently by the City of
Stockholm. Stockholms stad, the
public sector administration that is
responsible for managing the
majestic Swedish capital, is fully
adopting BREEAM In-Use as part of
its asset management strategy.
As part of their commitment,
Stockholm is also taking part in a
new pilot project aimed at creating
a more cost-effective volume
assessment route for BREEAM IN-
Use across its portfolio. Focusing on
a parcel of 50 public buildings, the
objective is to establish a costeffective
methodology for certifying
and maintaining certification of
asset portfolios against BREEAM In-
Use International 2015.
The pilot project will look at the
type of evidence common to a large
asset portfolio and how it can be
supplied, collected and verified in
order to minimise the need for
additional site visits. Working to predefined
criteria, it will focus on
ascertaining the type of evidence
that applies to buildings with similar
characteristics or properties – asset
clusters - and on establishing
whether an assessor can review this
evidence and accept it as applicable
to all.
The project is a partnership
between BRE Global (BREEAM), the
Real Estate Administration of
Stockholms Stad, engineering
consulting firm PQR Consult AB and
BREEAM In-Use assessor Piacon AB.
Taking place over a one year period,
the process will inform future years
of the BREEAM In-Use recertification
cycle.
To date, the City has 100 of its
buildings assessed or in progress
under BREEAM In-Use in total. It’s
also worth noting that these assets
represent a broad spectrum of
architectural styles, building ages,
uses and building services designs. In
fact, even the historic (and world
famous) City Hall building where the
Nobel prize-giving ceremony takes
place each year has also been
assessed. If the method can help to
improve the sustainability of such a
prestigious landmark building, then
it can definitely work for across
more modern assets too.
The fact that both commercial
and public sector property owners
are now choosing BREEAM to set
them apart, only adds weight to the
case for sustainability to be
considered as a matter of course in
everyday business. This is borne out
by the findings from the recent
CBRE EMEA Investor Intentions
Survey 2016 explored in more detail
in an article authored by Rebecca
Pearce, Senior Director, EMEA Head
of Sustainability for CBRE published
recently by the Better Buildings
Partnership.
The evidence is loud and clear,
the market now understands the
compelling reasons to buy asset
certification. In the CBRE survey just
11% of respondents now view
sustainability as an insignificant
factor during due diligence. Even
more compelling is that 39% of the
institutional investors surveyed cite
sustainable asset selection as
‘critical’ or ‘one of the most
important criteria’ when selecting
properties to acquire.
In a complicated commercial
property market, at least the road
ahead for asset managers is
becoming clear with solutions like
BREEAM providing a tangible route
to create sustainable property
management. After all, if Citycon
and the City of Stockholm can see
the benefit, there must be
something in it right? London, Paris,
New York - we’re ready if you are.
Web: www.bre.co.uk
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6 AUGUST 2016, REFURBISHMENT PROJECTS