Mid-Altantic meeting of minds might help save planet

COMMENT Returning to London after a week in Manhattan is always thought provoking. You can’t help but compare these two great global cities, and returning after attending last month’s CREtech New York conference was especially inspiring. Yes, there were lots of examples of great proptech adoption, and US real estate is clearly ahead of Europe in this field. But what was pleasantly surprising was the US real estate companies’ approach to sustainability. Gone were the debates about nobody caring or who should pay for this – instead there were lots of positive statements about commitment and that dealing with ESG just makes “good business sense”.   I was greatly encouraged by this. If companies follow through on their commitments, the adoption of technology that can help reduce operational carbon will surely follow. Where our US friends appeared to be lacking was the deeper understanding of sustainability strategy, of what needs to happen and how to make the change. Here I felt that we in the UK were ahead, perhaps not yet in making measurable differences, but with solid strategies for reaching net zero by 2030 and plenty of appetite for innovative thinking.   Meeting of minds Climate resilience is still felt really hard in New York. It’s been 10 years since Hurricane Sandy. Work has finally started on the city’s flood defence and Bjarke Ingels’ vision of new public realm skirting the banks of Manhattan. The Dryline is starting to become reality. This has led to significant investment in proptech – for example, VC Fifth Wall has recently closed its climate fund with $740m (£644m) in committed capital, with more than $330m already deployed in more than 20 businesses. The real estate leaders at the conference, like Laura Hines-Pierce of Hines, Sonny Kalsi of BentallGreenOak and Willy Walker of Walker & Dunlop all made major commitments to decarbonise. CREtech showed plenty of innovative solutions and tech that offer much promise and were fascinating to see. There was some representation from Europe too – for example Twinview, the provider of the digital twin at our building The Hickman, was able to show off a deeper and practical understanding of using technology to help reduce operational energy. I can’t help but feel that now is the opportunity for there to be a mid-Atlantic meeting of minds where we can bring our experience of defining and implementing sustainability strategies to the US experience of deploying technology. One of the significant differences between CREtech New York and London was the number of real estate companies in attendance. In Europe, apart from a few notable examples, I’m always struck by how few of my peers attend. Until we open our minds to how technology can support the path to net zero we are going to find it almost impossible to meet our targets. Hopefully more will attend CREtech London next year and CREtech founder Michael Beckerman’s passion for tech and sustainability will pay off. Seizing opportunity At GPE our focus on driving innovation is to support two of our most important commitments – to achieve net zero by 2030 and put our customers first in the process. Technology alone isn’t going to help us achieve this but it can do a great deal to make our colleagues’ and customers’ lives easier.  For example, I spoke on the panel about new workplaces of the future and was struck by US panellists complaining that landlords won’t share accurate energy data with their tenants. For us customer engagement around energy reduction is key to help reduce operational energy as well as driving customer satisfaction.   The opportunities are out there, investment in climate tech is at an all-time high and we have the expertise to embrace the sustainability challenges. We just need to meet in the middle to learn from each other how to best deploy solutions to meet the challenge. James Pellatt is director of innovation at GPE