As we celebrate a decade of energy efficiency improvements across one of the UK’s largest commercial property portfolios, our recent Energy Management Team of the Year Award win reflects the huge collaborative effort behind our industry-leading 55% reduction in energy intensity. What a team. Thank you to everyone involved.
This year, British Land achieved an incredible 55% reduction in landlord energy intensity across over 22 million sq ft of real estate, compared to our 2009 baseline. This contributed to substantial carbon and cost savings for us and our customers.
Far from resting on our laurels, we’re already looking ahead, as we work to transform our entire portfolio to net zero carbon by 2030. It won’t be easy but that’s the scale of change needed if we’re collectively to keep global warming below 1.5ºC. And we have a strong track record to build on. Here, I explore some of the lessons we’ve learnt over the last ten years, to guide us on the next stage of our journey.
Even if it ain’t broke – you can still fix it
Going back more than a decade, British Land’s Technical Services team, like those of other property companies, had a mentality of "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it". We aimed to make sure everything continued to work the way it always had, with little understanding of the impacts of this status quo on energy efficiency and customer satisfaction.
When we rolled out smart metering systems, they were a game changer in our buildings, allowing us to dig deep into energy usage, both from a landlord and occupier perspective. We could quickly see where energy was being used or, more importantly, wasted. We could also see where systems didn’t match how occupiers were actually using buildings. It turns out that, even when something doesn’t look broken, a lot can be fixed.
Embedding cultural change
With a team of over 30 time served engineers, it wasn’t easy to get everyone to think differently about how they were operating their buildings. Some felt that the new systems were a stick to beat them with. But, with data evidencing the benefits of change, the team soon saw the impact they could have on energy use in their properties and the relationships they could build with occupiers.
We put in place friendly rivalry between properties, looking at who was performing better and how others could improve. We gave everybody a voice at team meetings and opportunities to share their experiences, successes and ideas. It wasn’t long before cultural change started to embed itself. Once it gathered momentum, it was like a freight train through the whole Technical Services team.
We actioned all the easy wins relatively quickly. Things like making sure that plant and lighting are always off outside working hours (engaging with occupiers to agree those times, instead of rigidly sticking to times scheduled years before), eliminating heating and cooling conflicts, using night air for cooling on hot days, and installing efficient lighting systems with motion and daylight sensors. Then we started investigating more unusual technological and control solutions, actioning these through normal lifecycle replacements and in collaboration with occupiers, who often invested in improvements where we demonstrated robust business cases.
Pioneering engineering solutions
As part of our move towards demand-driven controls, we looked at the way air handling systems operated across our office portfolio and realised that conventional approaches pumped wasteful volumes of air into unoccupied or low-density spaces. So, we started strategically placing CO2 sensors to identify occupancy levels. We now use this sensor data to physically control air flow for both efficiency and wellbeing.
We were one of the first companies in the UK to introduce air source heat pumps into a commercial property. The technology was widely used elsewhere in Europe but had never been embraced here. Working with the manufacturers, we soon recognised its potential to save energy and reduce reliance on fossil fuels by recovering heat from chillers and reusing it for heating. Introducing the technology at 350 Euston Road reduced gas consumption by 80%. We now consider air source heat pumps as standard on all new developments and in all lifecycle replacements of cooling systems.
In our shopping centres, we were putting a lot of energy into providing conditioned air indoors, in line with the design philosophies from when the centres were built. However, we’ve found ways to use existing systems such as smoke ventilation systems, that were primarily there for emergency use, as a form of natural ventilation, allowing air to naturally flow through the space. This means in centres like Meadowhall we no longer need to run mechanical equipment as often, delivering significant energy and cost savings, whilst maintaining comfortable internal environments.
Continually improving
Over the last decade, we’ve provided evidence for others of what is achievable on energy efficiency. Our initial target was a 40% like-for-like reduction by 2015, which we exceeded, at 42%. This was unheard of at the time. We then took on the even more challenging target of reducing energy intensity by 55% across our entire portfolio by 2020, which we’ve managed to achieve as well.
Our latest objective is net zero carbon portfolio by 2030. I’m looking forward to this next challenge, delivering even more efficiency improvements and making considered decisions to best run our buildings for the customers and visitors who use them.
Our smartest building to date, 100 Liverpool Street, is a particularly exciting opportunity. We’ve been involved from the design stage and the implementation of smart technologies will empower us to learn even more about how buildings are used in real time and what that means for the services we provide.
If we’ve learnt anything from our success over the past decade, it’s be brave, be bold and always be prepared to learn.
Find out more about our net zero carbon strategy