It’s been tough for the communities and buildings of Yorkshire thanks to record river swells affecting more than 1,500 homes and businesses in the area.
Further afield, high tide brought alarm and destruction to Venice as the worst flooding in 50 years submerged the city. While Australia and California are flood-free, they are both grappling with unprecedented wildfires blazing through communities and blanketing cities in smoke. As we count the cost of these disasters, we should recognise that mitigating climate change is only part of the challenge facing us today. We must also invest in readjusting our built environment to a changing world.
We’re yet to fully understand just how far-reaching the impacts of climate change will be.
A recent paper from the London School of Economics describes these blind spots as “drastic and potentially catastrophic impacts on citizens, communities and companies”. While leading developers, investors and owners are adapting buildings to address these, in the context of our entire industry there’s much more to do.
What will it take to engage more building owners and investors with identifying and remedying such blind spots?
The forces of flooding, drought, weather and temperature change can sound ill-defined or distant, but we can point to material effects in our recent experience. We’ve seen how building services burn out more quickly as offices turn air conditioning to maximum in hot urban summers, even as their use increases outdoor temperatures further and exacerbates the need for indoor cooling. Water leakage from unprecedented rainfall compromises buildings thought to be watertight. Meanwhile, high winds present safety concerns for cladding and fixtures on buildings, as well as unsecured objects, trees and even people in the spaces between tall buildings.
Besides these immediate risks, and obvious damage from flood and fire, occupant wellbeing will also suffer if our buildings can’t accommodate changing conditions. A poor night’s sleep in an over-heated home can become an unproductive day at the office. Poor air quality in and on the way to work can manifest with breathing problems and spreading illness. Continued physical discomfort, not to mention threats to overall building safety can exacerbate mental health concerns.
This convergence of factors places wellbeing in the commercial picture because unhealthy, unhappy occupiers will move elsewhere. That may shape a divergent marketplace split by resilience and occupier wellbeing.
If we need more proof of the commercial implications of climate resilience, consider the Bank of England stress tests for the UK financial system. The central bank is due to check institutional risk management against immediate and transitional risks related to climate change in 2021. Meanwhile, the FSB Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures is gaining traction with 867 organisations supporting its standard for effective financial disclosures relating to climate change.
What can the real estate industry do about this now?
We’re used to judging sustainability by a selection of industry standards. We know buildings with the right certifications are performing against a known set of sustainable goals. But considering performance in terms of resilience is another matter. Without clear universal standards for climate risk and resilience, owners and investors should act to future-proof their assets by using their own commercial outlook as a barometer for success. With a strategic view, building owners and their consulting teams can make informed decisions to set a building or portfolio up to perform in the decades to come.
Once a high-level approach is agreed, a multidisciplinary team should undertake an in-depth analysis of the buildings themselves, with a data-driven approach. Tools such as the recently launched GRESB resilience methodology can help with this process. But only a bespoke approach will consider buildings in the context of their immediate environment as well as the wider context of changing conditions.
Assets which perform well over the longest possible lifespan have major commercial advantages. Resilience translates not just to cost savings from operation and maintenance but a great deal of value from occupant wellbeing, and staff retention and productivity in the workplace too.
Making this a reality can appear complex but a commercial imperative will help unite the broad expertise we need to solve it.
Mat Lown is partner and head of sustainability at TFT
