A key way we can reduce carbon is by lowering the energy use of our assets, and this has the additional benefit of reducing our customers’ energy costs. In line with our ISO 50001 Energy Management System, every property we operate has its own energy reduction plan. These plans look at retrofitting energy-efficient equipment, optimising our buildings to use less energy, and working with our customers to reduce the energy they use in their spaces.
It has been a turbulent year for energy management, and the lockdowns have naturally had an impact on how we operate buildings. With the fall in occupancy rates, we made an even bigger push towards lowering our energy use by maximising building efficiency while ensuring the health and safety of our occupants. To do this, we use smart technology to gather data from our building management systems in several of our offices, and having this detailed data helps us decide how we control energy-intensive service equipment in our buildings, and the services that we provide in our buildings are now running in line with occupancy. Consequently, this year we have been able to undertake various actions to improve the building management systems at our London assets. For example, we have improved the efficiency and lifecycle of our cooling systems, as they now react more optimally to external temperatures.
Our energy intensity has decreased considerably this year, by a further 29% compared with last year, and is now 43% below our 2013/14 baseline. Although this figure suggests that we’ve already achieved our target to reduce energy intensity by 40% by 2030, we recognise that energy consumption has been significantly impacted by lower occupancy and operational hours due to Covid restrictions and doesn’t reflect portfolio energy performance in normal conditions. For that reason, we’ll continue tracking our performance against this 2030 target.
In addition, we acknowledge we must do more to further reduce our energy use and transition to net zero carbon. We are therefore working to ‘future-proof’ our portfolio, so we can continue to operate in line with our ambition and meet the commitments we have made. To do this, we have mapped out the level of investment needed to reach our net zero target and identified the priority projects needed.
We see increased customer engagement as having significant potential for energy savings. We are developing an engagement programme for increasing collaboration with our occupiers on initiatives to improve energy performance.
The formal launch of NABERS UK in November 2020 was an important milestone, and Landsec has been supporting it over a number of years as Pioneers of the Design for Performance initiative led by the Better Buildings Partnership (BBP). NABERS UK is a new energy-efficiency rating scheme for in-use performance that will help commercial office developers and owners deliver and operate energy-performant buildings and
disclose their actual performance.
We’ve chosen Portland House and Timber Square as our two official Design for Performance Pioneer projects. Following the NABERS UK Design for Performance approach, the energy performance of our development projects has been independently verified to targeted ratings.
We’re targeting operational energy performance for our new developments in line with those published by the UKGBC in its Net Zero Carbon Framework.
