Might 2024 be the year for commercial retrofit?
Archive | 15 January 2024 | This blog originally appeared on LinkedIn.
I’m optimistic it might be, let me explain why. We know that consumer appetite, therefore investor interests and influence, is shaping our commercial offices market. We also see this coming through in more forward thinking clients, those who have committed to their own Net Zero Targets.
At Mace, this manifests itself in 50% of its commercial office revenue being from retrofit projects rather than wholesale demolish and start again. Clearly, they’re good at finding and delivering for these forward thinking clients! However, at an industry level this denotes a direction of travel rather than a mainstream shift.
But, as I say, I am optimistic and here’s why:
Net Zero Carbon Building Standard is launched this year
I cannot underline enough the significance of this work, it might be difficult to get excited about embodied and operational carbon benchmarks but they are a game changer. For the first time, with the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (NZCBS), we will have industry agreed standard benchmarks for different asset classes – telling us what good looks like per m2 and with the supporting RICs method of measurement telling us how to consistently calculate it it’s the end of the wild west and start of a professional and trusted approach. ‘So what?” I hear you say. Well…
It gives the QS’s currency in carbon for the first time so they can trade, balance, and who knows even reward(!), beyond just cost and time.
Investors will know ‘what good looks like’ for their asset classes, letting their heads of sustainability breathe a sigh of relief as they pull together the corporate carbon targets.
For companies like Mace, it means they can baseline and robustly measure Scope 3 emissions, so when it sets targets such as the 10 million tonnes of client carbon saved, it can evidence the savings and show it is leading the industry.
“It might be difficult to get excited about embodied and operational carbon benchmarks but they are a game changer.”
Science based targets in the draft Buildings guidance for owners and occupiers – launched Q4 2023
Hardly a blockbuster title but stay with me… This standard means that any of our investors or developer clients who have committed to science based targets now have a robust methodology they need to demonstrate their targets against which includes significant items such as upfront embodied carbon of new buildings. While some businesses already routinely do this, but it will become mandatory of those who have corporate SBTi targets (the most widely recognised regime for target setting and assurance).
We will now find organisations have a choice. They can renege on their commitment to SBTi (tricky sell to investors) or they can formalise or in some cases broaden their targets. This philosophical question will no doubt be vexing many Boards over the coming months. Whilst some will always be more ambitious and perhaps better equipped to make this decision, I expect, in time, all will get there and as such we will see the mainstreaming of retrofit in response.
A final thought on the politics we face this year with the Autumn General Election and Mayoral campaigns across the country which will influence market confidence and planning policy. We know that Net Zero has been made a political battleground by our erstwhile PM but, whilst the carbon debate and appetite to targets will wax and wane with the political headwinds, the opportunity to be less wasteful and more efficient through a retrofit mindset cannot be denied.
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.
Hannah Vickers is Managing Director at Built Confidence and was previously Chief of Staff and Global Head of Advisory at Mace.
