Power down Increasing a shopping centre’s environmental performance need not cost a bundle – on the contrary, low-tech energy efficiency strategies implemented at minimal cost can actually save landlords money. Stacey Meadwell reports
If you want to make your shopping centre green, don’t hire a security guard of a nervous disposition. Okay, so it’s not quite that simple – but it is just one discovery made by a landlord looking to make its centre more sustainable.
In this case the landlord was PRUPIM, which on analysing daily power usage in one of its centres discovered a spike at 3am caused by a security guard with a fear of the dark who switched on all the lights while he did his rounds.
Rising fuel bills and a flagging economy mean that sustainability is growing in importance, not just as something companies want to be seen to be doing, but as a means of saving cash. And a second crack of the whip is coming from legislation.
Much attention is given to new shopping centres which, by starting with a clean sheet, can be built sustainably, incorporating efficient operating systems and green technology right from the start.
For example, the Bristol Alliance’s 1.5m sq ft retail centre Cabot Circus, which opened at the end of September with an excellent BREEAM rating, had already managed to recycle 85% of the waste produced during its construction, sourced 75% of building materials from within the UK, and fitted a rainwater harvesting system.
But new centres represent only 2% of the UK’s shopping centre stock, and for the remaining 98% it is of course too late to think about sourcing building materials from sustainable sources or recycling construction waste.
Existing buildings can, however, be made to operate more sustainably (see p46). The financial costs incurred in this can be an issue but, if purse strings are tight, there is a whole raft of what those in the know call”low-cost/no-cost” ecological solutions. And some warn that short-term penny pinching now may come back to haunt landlords later.
Paul Cornes, head of sustainability at PRUPIM, which owns a number of centres including Bluewater in Kent and Cribbs Causeway in Bristol, says: “More and more legislation is starting to focus on the energy performance of buildings, so unless you make them more sustainable now you will get less when you come to sell them.”
Alex Edds, associate director at Jones Lang LaSalle’s Upstream sustainability consultancy, agrees. He points out that, while there is too little data at present to put a value on sustainability, “it is a question of whether you will be able to sell that property in 10-15 years’ time.
“Energy performance certificates are a fairly tangible label, and if you have a G-rated building and it’s going to cost you x amount to bring it up to an E-rating, is an investor going to buy that building?”
Edds says that the cost of some measures, such as landlords recycling tenants’ waste, can be recouped through service charges, but other procedures are pure capital expenditure.
At Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, landlord Land Securities acts as broker for all its tenants’ waste and has entered into a partnership with Veolia, which recovers energy from the waste. That energy is turned into steam, which is used to drive high-pressure turbines generating electricity that is supplied to the National Grid.
Peter Emery, centre manager at Gunwharf Quays, points out a side benefit of this partnership – by diverting this waste from landfill, the mall has also reduced road haulage miles and pushed up its recycling figures from 55% to 99%.
Some centres have discovered hidden benefits in being green. Edds says: “You can actually make money from recycling cardboard and plastic. For example, The Centre:MK [in Milton Keynes] is making a profit from doing this and has taken on a homeless person to manage it, which is an additional benefit to corporate social responsibility.”
But as PRUPIM’s Cornes – who is also chairman of the BCSC’s sustainability committee – points out, there are even simpler measures, such as identifying and addressing issues like that 3am electricity spike. He explains that although most modern shopping centres have a building management system, operational needs can change, meaning that small things such as ensuring the system is switching the lights, heating and cooling on and off at the right time can yield quite dramatic results. “At Cribbs Causeway we saved 14% of electrcity and 21% of gas just by analysing the data from the BMS and being far smarter,” he says.
And PRUPIM has not been afraid to get out a stepladder and paintbrush in order to save energy. In one of its centres the underground car park had three bulbs in each light fitting. So company workers painted the inside of each fitting with reflective material so that one bulb could be removed. The result: the same amount of light for the use of less electricity.
Cornes describes such low-cost/no-cost solutions as a “no-brainer” and says it is what landlords should be doing anyway.
The question is: how much further beyond such simple measures should landlords go to make their asset sustainable?
Green roofs, grey-water recycling, combined heat and power, solar panel, wind turbines – there is a seemingly endless array of sustainable technology investments to choose from. And while these measures are far more costly than the process of simply installing smart meters, some do eventually pay for themselves.
JLL’s Edds points to the rainwater harvesting system that was installed at The Centre:MK. The water feeds the food waste compactor, which produces compost for use on the landscaping around the centre. He says of the system: “You can recoup the costs of installing it because you no longer have to clear the drains, you are getting rid of food waste and you don’t need to buy in compositing material. You would get paid back in 12 to 18 months.”
It is easy for businesses to forget the planet when profits are being squeezed, and there is no doubt that for some, sustainability will slip down the agenda. But, as Cornes points out: “Fuel costs are going up and up and so it seems silly not to maximise the cost savings.”
The force may be with shoppers…
What are scientists working on that could become a feature of the shopping centre of the future?
With swathes of roof space, shopping centres have the benefit of economies of scale when it comes to solar panels, but present technology uses hard silicon chips, which are expensive. Gel versions are being developed that are more hardwearing and cheaper.
Then there are intelligent windows. Shoppers love light and airy centres, and architects oblige with lots of glass in their designs. But heat transference in warm weather results in an increasing need for air-conditioning, resulting in higher fuel costs.
Technology on photosensitive glass that darkens in hotter weather to reflect back the heat is improving and could become an increasingly financially viable option for developers in the future, believes Paul Cornes of PRUPIM.
A similar argument applies to wind turbines. A very visible option, they tend to be regarded as little more than “greenwash” in terms of what they can actually achieve but, as technology improves, they may become more viable and effective. As Alex Edds of JLL’s Upstream points out: “Securing energy is going to become an increasing problem, so having on-site generation will become more important.”
Another option for on-site generation – which may sound like something out of a Star Wars movie – is to harness the force with which pedestrians’ feet hit the ground. Initially the target for transport hubs such as train stations, the technology could also work in shopping malls. The force may be with shoppers.
The pressure is on retailers to make their shops green
Legislation on sustainability is hitting landlords in the pocket, and their tenants are adding to the pressure to make property green. Simple measures like using more energy-efficient hand dryers help. But retailers also have corporate social responsibilities, as Adam Rawls, of retail design consultant Rawls & Co, points out .
For retailers, the key target areas are recycling, transport and fit-out costs. Rawls says that Pret a Manger inadvertently gave itself a sustainable fit-out as a response to short leases. The sandwich bar chain needed units that were durable and could be easily rolled out and fitted into a different shop, so it put wheels on its display cabinets and chose metal floors and surfaces.
But such sustainable fit-outs tend not to be an automatic choice for most retailers, particularly those serving fickle consumer tastes where looks constantly need to be refreshed.
Rawls says: “There are some really nasty products out there at the moment that aren’t green but retailers want them because they are cheap, easy and look good. For example, PVC floors are easy to put in and last a long time, but actually they’ll probably get ripped up in two to three years’ time and, because of the material, they can’t be recycled they will go straight to landfill.”
Some retailers are already catching on to the idea. Neal’s Yard Remedies and the Body Shop use recycled milk cartons as shelving, for instance. And supermarket giant Tesco, which has to reconfigure stores regularly to keep up with market trends, is looking at ways of doing so without too much wastage.
Rawls believes that there are benefits to both landlord and tenant in having sustainable shop units designed to adapt easily to different tenants. The relatively small scale of fit-out work required for such a unit should make it more attractive to prospective tenants, while the landlord’s contribution towards fit-out costs can be smaller, too.
At the moment, the corporate message of sustainability does not always filter down to the shop floor, but some in the sector believe it is only a matter of time before finding a way to keep branding fresh yet sustainable will become vital to the way shops are supplied and fitted out.
