Meeting net zero

NET ZERO WORKPLACE TRENDS CONFERENCE ORGANISER’S VIEW
MAGGIE PROCOPI,
WORKPLACE TRENDS

Every building will require its own strategy to achieve net zero emissions, and following COP26, the UK government will soon require many companies to begin publishing net zero transition plans by 2023.

Carbon emissions are generally categorised into embodied carbon and operational carbon. Carbon dioxide emissions from making a building (or refurbishing it) are classed as embodied carbon. Emissions of carbon dioxide during the in-use operation of a building, such as operational energy use is classed as operational carbon.

Here are some carbon saving measures, operational and embodied, that should be taken into consideration and may form part of your net zero plan. Depending on timeframes and costs they can be planned for and implemented at the time that’s right for a business.

♦ Switch to a renewable energy source: this is by far the easiest, quickest and most effective measure that corporates and individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint.

♦  Install on-site or local renewable energy generation and storage.

♦  Insulate your building. At the same time arrange for natural or energy efficient and healthy ventilation, heating and cooling. Revisit the recommended temperatures for buildings and in so doing, remember the likely different requirements of your occupants (eg men, women, sedentary, active).

♦ Install energy efficient appliances, especially LED lights (but ones that can be recycled).

♦  Encourage active travel to and from the building.

♦  Provide charging points for e-cars.

♦  For offices, look at your Work From Home policies. WFH can be energy efficient in the summer, but possibly not so in the winter (as employees heat their home space). Put plans in place to make your building attractive so visitors and employees view it as a positive destination.

♦  Install sensors to monitor energy use and identify where improvements can be made.

♦  Buy goods and services locally: from a complete fit-out to the canteen cheese sandwich or exotic salad, don’t be responsible for lengthy transportation routes.

• If you do need to transport items to a building, travel by road is the worst for carbon emissions, followed by rail, then transport by sea being the most favourable.
• Make it circular: check out the Circular Economy (as opposed to a linear one), where products and assets are designed and built to be more durable, to be repaired, refurbished, reused and disassembled/recycled.
• Choose sustainable, recycled, enduring and natural materials for refurbishments.
• Consider the aesthetic and carbon benefits of green roofs and external green walls (a new law in France will require all new commercial buildings to at least partially cover rooftops in plants or solar panels).
• Offset what carbon you are responsible for, or even better, go climate positive and exceed your Net Zero goals. There are many carbon-offset schemes available to sign up to.

If you’re not sure where to start, there’s a plethora of consultancies out there to help you. But THE most important thing is to begin the journey. Bring your supporters and consultants along as and when you are able, but make this the year you, as an individual and as part of a corporation, make a carbon change for the better.

Maggie Procopi runs the Workplace Trends series of conferences which includes the upcoming The Net Zero Workplace Conference taking place in London and online on Thursday 7 July.

THE SUSTAINABLE FM PROVIDER’S VIEW
PRADYUMNA PANDIT,
MANAGING DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY AND ENERGY SERVICES, MITIE

The climate crisis is undeniably one of the most pressing challenges of our time. With 1.7 million non-domestic buildings in the UK, British businesses must play a central role in tackling climate change by decarbonising their estates. However, the drive to retrofit buildings is not only coming from a need to support environmental ambitions. Recent global events are seeing huge increases in energy costs, meaning investing in improving energy efficiency and decarbonisation solutions is not only the right thing to do, but a commercial priority too.

As the experts in managing buildings as efficiently as possible, facilities managers have a deep understanding of how sites are performing, making them ideally placed to drive the green transition within organisations.

We believe there are three key steps FMs need to consider: economise, decarbonise, and monetise.

The first step, ‘economise’, focuses on ensuring that buildings and equipment are running as efficiently as possible. Leveraging data, sensors, and smart controls to ensure energy use is optimised, while not affecting comfort, can add up to big savings – we saved our customers £19 million worth of energy in the Financial Year 2020/2021 through optimisations like this. Similarly, by upgrading light bulbs to more energy efficient LEDs and installing motion sensors for lighting systems, we helped businesses cut energy use by 30 per cent in 2020.

Once the building is running as efficiently as possible, the next step is to ‘decarbonise’ operations, through investment in energy efficiency upgrades, removing gas heating systems and installing on-site renewable energy generation. Rather than continuing with like-for-like replacements of equipment, lower carbon, more sustainable options should always be the priority. Even replacing a gas-powered boiler for a more efficient model will still help reduce carbon emissions.

Finally, as well as helping to attract top talent, a net zero workplace presents an opportunity to ‘monetise’ by creating new revenue streams. Whether it’s charging individuals outside the organisation to use electric vehicle charge points, reducing bills by generating energy on site, or varying how power is bought and sold based on factors such as weather, cost and demand, a net zero building is also an opportunity to support the financial health of the organisation.

A common factor of all these initiatives is that they will be implemented by facilities management. Indeed, at Mitie, we have a roadmap in place to have a net zero estate by 2025, with nine of our sites already decarbonised and having reduced annual energy use by 100,000 kWh. We’re helping FM customers do their same for their own organisations, installing over 1,000 charge points, creating net zero pathways for 800 sites, and fitting countless decarbonisation solutions, from LED lighting to solar PV. By harnessing data, insights, and technology, an approach we call ‘the science of service’, facilities management can, and should, play a central role accelerating businesses towards net zero.