A bold vision for better buildings

Almost a decade on from the historic Paris climate change agreement and mid-way through this “decade of action” on climate, the Better Buildings Partnership is marking five years since the launch of the BBP Climate Commitment. Here Sarah Ratcliffe, chief executive of the industry body, shares its new ambition and challenge for the future. Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2016, the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change on communities and buildings in the UK and elsewhere have become apparent. Last year was the first year the global average temperature exceeded 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, the critical threshold set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Extreme weather events, including severe flooding in the UK, Spain and Nepal and Atlantic hurricanes, have impacted the vulnerable most severely and underscore the urgent need for action. Today, the UK is recovering from flooding and in North America wildfires rage. The impacts of climate change are clear and are only likely to escalate for our sector. At COP29, held in Baku in November, the UK government pledged to cut carbon emissions by 81% from 1990 levels by 2035, and while the UK has successfully halved its territorial emissions since 1990, evidence indicates that there has been slow progress in reducing emissions from commercial buildings. There is no doubt that there has been a significant strategic shift within the commercial property sector during this time. Sustainability is being mainstreamed within investment portfolios across major players in the market, and property investors, owners and managers are setting out their decarbonisation pathways, nature and circular economy strategies. Examples of net-zero buildings are emerging across the industry. We hope that at the BBP we have played an important role in driving some of that change. Accelerating action Acknowledging that our industry has a vital role to play in addressing sustainability challenges and setting targets has been an important step forward, but now we need to start sprinting – a rapid acceleration of industry action is vital. This is why we have brought our board and members together to set out a 2030 Vision for the BBP. As a purpose-driven organisation, we wanted to ensure that we had clear priorities that reflected the challenges facing our members and deliverables that would help support action. Our board and members told us very clearly that our industry’s priorities should be to deliver, upscale and collaborate. Janine Cole, chair of the BBP and sustainability and social impact director at GPE, says time is of the essence. “With only a few years until 2030 within which to deliver real impact, our 2030 Vision is a call to action for the commercial property sector,” she says. “We know that making significant reductions in carbon emissions, creating resilient assets and valuing nature are intimately interconnected and that addressing these will provide strong foundations for our future economic prosperity. We also know that it will take unprecedented commitment and tenacity to realise this opportunity.” With sustainability targets set, we urgently need to turn commitments into action. Many of the solutions the industry needs already exist; the challenge now is to scale uptake and accelerate progress, most especially in those hard-to-reach assets across diverse and complex portfolios where investment and leasing structures are not conducive, and value is difficult to realise. This will require unprecedented collaboration within our sector, coupled with ambitious policy and investment.  Of course, it is not within the BBP’s remit to deliver all of this – our members have told us that the BBP’s superpower is the practical approach we take to addressing challenges through the lens of property ownership. We will therefore focus on what we do best. Our vision sets out our plans to turbocharge our activity in the following areas: Amplify our impact, seeking to extend the reach of our existing projects while utilising the experience of these to inform future action. We are particularly keen to ensure that the experience of our members and the lessons gained from BBP initiatives – including the BBP Climate Commitment, Real Estate Environmental Benchmark, NABERS UK and the Owner-Occupier Forum – are shared more widely to demonstrate how industry leadership can play an important role in driving market transformation. Embed tools, guidance and skills across decision-making processes, using them to upskill across a wide range of professionals and influence industry standards. The BBP toolkits and guidance are widely respected and designed to be plug-and-play tools that property owners can easily integrate. Our vision is to ensure that the toolkits are kept live and relevant, reflecting an increasingly diverse industry and emerging best practice. Pioneer in new impact areas as our understanding of sustainability evolves. As part of our vision, we will be expanding our work programme to reflect new member priorities, seize innovation opportunities and address the shifting dynamics of property ownership, addressing emerging issues such as circularity, social impact and nature. Radical collaboration Sustainability requires collective action. Our members were vocal about the need to reduce duplication of effort, improve consistency, utilise limited resources and align to present a coherent industry. Collaboration is an enduring theme in our vision, and we will be testing the appetite for radical collaboration among other industry bodies, membership organisations and professional institutions. Our roles in the Green Property Alliance and the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard already demonstrate our commitment to this. At the BBP we firmly believe that better buildings attract investment, occupiers and talent into the sector, as well as creating resilient communities that support environmental, social and economic prosperity. Our sector needs to seize this opportunity to thrive. Our greatest chance of driving the sustainable transformation of commercial real estate is through open, honest dialogue, finding areas of alignment and leveraging our industry voice to set new expectations for what sustainability should look like. In our unique position we look forward to bringing our members and broader stakeholders together in collaboration, not competition. Together we can be more than the sum of our parts. Click here to read the new vision Photo © Thibaud Frere/Pixabay; Infographic © Better Buildings Partnership