FOOTPRINT podcasts

Climate change adaptation

Climate change resilience is therefore a recurring theme within all global new and emerging ESG disclosure frameworks, including the SFDR and EU Taxonomy. Born off the back of the insurance industry’s recent losses due to the physical impacts of climate change, there is a growing emphasis on mitigation and evaluation of physical risks to individual assets and portfolios. It is expected that all buildings will require bespoke physical risk assessments and adaptation strategies within the next three years, or risk insurance premium rises and asset devaluation.

This session will introduce the definition of Climate change resilience and adaptation including the SFDR and the EU Taxonomy, requirements including:

•  to review the risks to individual assets or entire funds for their physical, reputation and transitional risks associated with climate change in accordance with TFCD and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures
• to produce risk reduction plans and implementation strategies to future proof assets, funds, and portfolios

Simon Wyatt, Partner, Sustainability - Cundall

Laura Thrower, Senior Responsible Property Investment Analyst - Royal London Asset Management

Elisabeth Marlow, Principal Consultant, Sustainability - Cundall

Bernadette Middleton, Climate Change Risk Engineer - Zurich Insurance

Breakfast Briefing with Polycor, Albion Stone and Hutton Stone: Mayfield School: Redefining construction norms

 

Mayfield School's Health & Wellbeing Centre integrates natural materials such as stone and timber in an innovative and sustainable way, with a special focus on the revolutionary use of low-carbon stone brick. Addressing not only the physical and psychological needs of students the building serves as an educational tool on sustainability. Spatial and material considerations result in a design that is warm, protective, and conducive to mental well-being.

Substituting traditional fired clay brick with stone brick delivers an 86% reduction in carbon emissions. The stone brick's cutting process, powered by renewable electricity, offers flexibility in size and shape. Strength and size advantages open doors to larger format units, enabling the use of single stone blocks for lintels and monumental slabs for entrance portals.

Chairperson

Valerie Bergeron, Business Development Director - Polycor

Speakers

Joe Chilvers, Associate - Adam Richards Architects

Marcus Paine, Managing Director - Hutton Stone

Michael Poultney, Managing Director - Albion Stone

3 Sheldon Square: Accelerating low carbon retrofit

3 Sheldon Square sits in British Land & GIC's Paddington Central campus, adjacent to Paddington Station. 3 Sheldon Square was originally constructed c2000, and with all office tenants vacating in 2022, British Land explored a multitude of development and refurbishment options. 

Retention and reposition of the existing building was the preferred scheme option taken forward, and the project achieves Practical Completion in Q1 2024. This session looks to explore the rationale behind the preferred scheme option, sustainability success and how this fed into attracting a significant anchor letting to compete with new build office product in the vicinity. 

Luke Kelly, Project Director - British Land

Hannah Poole, Senior Leasing Manager - British Land

Joe Morris, Founding Director - Morris+Company

Mohamad Yassine, Associate Director - Rambol

The cumulative carbon effect in CAT B fit out

Late in 2023, a dedicated cross-sector research group was set up to better understand the upfront carbon emissions associated with Cat B Office fit out projects. Created as an extension of the Offices Sector Group for the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, the team sought to obtain data on the current industry performance level of Cat B office fit outs. This information is intended to be used in the limit-setting exercise to help apportion the industry’s remaining carbon budget, before release of the Beta Test version of the Standard in Summer 2024.

The results of this research have informed subsequent discussions around the cumulative embodied carbon impact of Cat B Fit Out projects, which is the subject for this panel discussion. 

Speakers

Zoë Glander, Environmental and Sustainability Manager - Overbury

Asif Din, Sustainability Director - Perkins + Will

Andrew Moore, Associate Director - Hilson Moran

Will Belfield, Principal Sustainability Consultant - Hoare Lea

Elina Grigoriou, Design and Sustainability Director - Grigoriou Interiors

Facades at the heart of retrofit strategy

Facades are the skin of a building playing a role in thermal efficiency, daylighting and aesthetics etc. Improving the external envelope of buildings can be one of the most effective ways to alter a potentially stranded asset and give it a long term future, saving the embodied carbon within the existing building. What considerations should be foremost in the project team’s mind? This session will cover:

• establishing the trade-off between operational and embodied carbon costs of different solutions
• replacement of glazing, thermal elements and cladding materials
• early engagement with contractors 

Gianluca Rapone, Sustainability Lead - FMDC

Matthew Mapp, Head of Whole Life Carbon - Sweco

Margaux Basalo, Facade Package Manager - Mace Group

Laura Collins, Project Director - Stanhope

Emily Watson, Director - Stiff + Trevillion

Delivering BNG within dense urban environments

The Environment Bill has created obligations for developers that can have unintended consequences, not least the provisions for offsite gain or payments to local authorities in lieu of on-site provision. A tight urban site can seem to offer few opportunities to increase biodiversity and support nature. In this practical session addressing the challenges of delivery BNG within the red line boundary we hear from several specialists on strategies for increasing biodiversity on the most challenging of urban sites

Speakers

Haydn Keen, Business Development Director - RSK

Jon Davies, Director - RSK Wilding

Mark Knight, Landscape Team Leader - Groundwork

James King, Director, Planit

Breakfast Briefing with Modus: How is ESG driving asset performance?

Real estate businesses, funds and assets with a robust understanding of how to leverage ESG benefits through their activities place themselves at a strategic advantage in the market - minimising risk and enhancing future resilience – so it’s more important than ever to understand this trend for long term commercial success.

Join Workplace Futures Group, Modus and Lifeproven to debate the influence of ESG on the rapidly evolving landscape of real estate investments, and reveal how to develop a robust ESG strategy that focuses on enhancing both the financial and impact performance over time. 

This session will cover several key factors involved in implementing and maintaining a successful ESG strategy through all key real estate stages; including pre-acquisition due diligence, design and funding targets, engaging key stakeholders to understand the additional value you deliver for them,  procuring the right contracting team to deliver your strategy, capturing key ESG data through construction and operation, and also leveraging the right information to drive rental or sales demand.

Speakers

Tim White, Chief Operating Officer - Workplace Futures Group

Adam Hinds, Co-Founder - LifeProven

Juliet Price, Project Director - Modus

 

Xylo: The largest all-timber frame office building in the UK

Xylo, the largest consented all-timber office building in the UK, is a 9-storey, glulam and CLT framed office building in Clerkenwell. Designed as a kit of parts, it proposes a new typology of sustainable office building based around the future adaptability and the wellbeing of its occupants. This whole building approach to sustainability demonstrates that when retrofit isn’t an option, Mass Timber can offer the most environmentally responsible approach. Exceeding the sustainability targets set by both the GLA and Camden Council, this building has been calculated to lower operational carbon emissions by up to 82% over a typical office building. The offsite fabrication of the timber structure lowers the construction phase carbon emissions and as a result, overall embodied emissions will be 25% better than the aspirational GLA WLC benchmark and better than the UKGBC Case for Net Zero Feasibility Study Stretch Targets. 

Speakers

Karianne Kraaijestein, Director - Pure Mind Management

Andy Heyne, Director - Heyne Tillett Steel

Chris Price, Sustainability Consultant and Embodied Carbon Specialist - Max Fordham LLP

Jason Coe, Associate - Piercy & Co

Andrew Ross, Development Director - Global Holdings