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British Land’s Broadgate FM team won the Facilities Management category at this year’s CIBSE Building Performance Awards. Anastasia Mylona, Technical Director at CIBSE outlines some of the carbon saving interventions that impressed the judges
In 2020 British Land made an ambitious commitment to achieving a net zero carbon portfolio by 2030. One of the key indicators in progress towards this goal is an increase in whole building energy efficiency. This is an approach which is putting the buildings well ahead of the target trajectory.
This impressive achievement by British Land’s Broadgate facilities management teams builds on the completion of a series of net zero audits at the properties. The audits help to benchmark the buildings’ carbon footprint, identify efficiencies and potential actions needed to achieve its carbon reduction goals. Following the audits, British Land then set about implementing a series of interventions, often in collaboration with the buildings’ occupiers.
It is an approach that has succeeded in improving whole building energy efficiency by 33 per cent in 2023 (compared to a 2019 benchmark) across 1.3 million sq ft of space, including a reduction in energy consumption in the common areas, shared services and occupier demises. It is an achievement that is all the more impressive because it builds on earlier energy savings, making already energy efficient buildings even more energy efficient. In 2023 alone, over 3000 tonnes of carbon and £4.1 million in energy costs have been saved.
AWARD WINNING
British Land’s achievements were recognised by the judges at this year’s CIBSE Building Performance Awards where its team took the Facilities Management crown for its work at Broadgate. The judges said they were impressed by British Land overcoming the challenges of carrying out energy efficiency improvements in operational buildings and said it was “really promising to see FM taking an active role in the decarbonisation of buildings and energy management”.
The four buildings where these spectacular improvements have been implemented were constructed in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, they are: 10 Exchange Square; 201 Bishopsgate; Broadwalk House; and Exchange House.
All the buildings have made use of British Land’s innovative funding mechanism for carbon saving interventions. This is based on the developer placing an internal levy of £60 per tonne of embodied carbon on its new developments. It then makes two-thirds of this levy available to finance carbon saving retrofits to its standing portfolio.
Fundamental to the implementation of carbon saving initiatives in all four buildings has been the facilities management teams’ early engagement and willingness to share energy data with the buildings’ occupiers to help gain their buy-in to its various initiatives and interventions.
