Rising energy costs are poised to do for UK offices what decades of environmental pressure has failed to do: to make them greener.
Until recently, the cost of electricity and gas has not been high enough to worry the accountants, and most environmental inclinations have been crushed by the desire for comfort -in air-conditioning, for example. This usually means that the more worthy option (in the case of air conditioning, natural ventilation) has been the exception rather than the rule.
What might alter this is not moral pressure but viciously rising fuel bills. Saving money is more likely to change office buildings than an ethical desire to salve the corporate conscience. Cash trumps morals.
There is no doubt that power costs are going up. Jones Lang LaSalle’s research suggests that the cost of electricity contracts signed in April were 72% higher than those of similar contracts at the same time last year. Gas contract prices are rising at a similar rate. The question now is not whether such rises will have a more widespread influence on fuel-efficient buildings, but how quickly widespread change will happen.
Increased service charges
James Weedon, partner at Cushman & Wakefield, says that tenants have not really started to voice concern, perhaps because they are locked in to five- or 10-year leases, so there is nothing they can immediately do in any case. Increased energy costs just have to be borne through an increased service charge -not pleasant but unavoidable in the short to medium term.
The longer term, however, is a different matter. Developers, says Weedon, are more likely to look at putting up green buildings if they think there might be long-term financial advantages in doing so, as well as having to face pressure from planners to comply with more stringent environmental regulations.
Some of the most powerful companies have taken it upon themselves to cut energy use and gain the moral high ground by going green on their own sites. One example is BP, which flattened its old research site at Sunbury, south-west of London, and put up four new standalone buildings to house 4,500 staff.
The new buildings are purpose-built to be environmentally friendly, which also means being economical in power consumption, with photo-voltaic cells used to generate electricity, lights linked to motion sensors which switch them off when a room is empty, and entirely natural cooling systems including cold well-water pumped into the building.
BP estimates that carbon dioxide emissions from the Sunbury site are half what they would be without the new technology.
Blue-chip companies and cutting-edge developments will probably lead the way for environmental performance in office buildings, even if the issue remains low on most tenants’ list of priorities. David Thomas, associate director at CBRE, says that in the past 10 years only two prospective tenants have asked for the BREEAM rating of a building they were considering. BREEAM, an acronym for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, is a generally accepted benchmark for the environmental performance of a building, but until now tenants have apparently not cared much about it.
The widespread change that is beginning to take hold will doubtless be accelerated by the more stringent building regulations the government brought into force last month.
Compliant buildings
Miles Keeping, partner at King Sturge, says: “We suggest that, within 10 years, compliant buildings will be using 70% less energy than today because the regulations will become increasingly stringent.”
Paul Appleby, head of the building sustainability unit at consultancy URS, advises developers and designers on how to put up buildings that are as environmentally friendly as possible. The key point for URS -and for planners in local authorities up and down the UK -is to reduce the “carbon footprint” of buildings. The aim is to ensure buildings pollute less throughout their working life.
This can cost money. Using resources such as solar panels, local sources of heating and power, and bore holes for heating and cooling can cost as much as £2m-£3m extra on a £150m building, Appleby estimates. But, as indicated by the wind turbines on Castle House in the new Elephant & Castle development in south London (see left), such features are increasingly common in new buildings and planners are starting to demand them.
Using both heat and power from relatively local community power stations is a key way of using power efficiently. Most major power stations are too far from their customers to make any efficient use of the heat generated from electricity production, but local power stations can pipe water or steam into buildings to provide heating.
Among the business parks that supplies heat this way and controls its own power supply is Slough Trading Estates, where Slough Heat & Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Slough Estates Group.
But SHP is not exactly a modern response to a modern issue. The estate has had its power station since it was built in 1925, and it was built simply because the tenants would not otherwise have had a power supply. It is a happy accident that SHP is now in a strong position to supply the estate’s tenants with the cheapest deal, as well as being environmentally admirable.
Jon Pebworth, managing director of the power supplier, says that among the ways the power station maintains its green credentials is the burning of renewable fuels -mainly wood products, non-recyclable paper and kerbside rubbish -plus, of course, using the steam that is a by-product of electricity production to help heat the estate’s buildings.
The power station supplies 400 businesses, the biggest of which is confectionery giant Mars, as well as 2,000 domestic customers living mostly in former council houses alongside the estate.
Not only does the station enhance its green credentials by providing power and heat, it offers increased security of supply as it can use energy from the national grid, but is not dependent on it. Green, local and relatively secure: the Slough Estate power station may represent the future for many UK commercial buildings.
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It would be hard for the Environment Agency to justify having anything other than an eco-friendly building as its headquarters. Fortunately for the agency, its base, Kite House in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, is a model of its kind and an example for anyone wanting a building that pollutes as little as possible. Kite House ticks all the environmental boxes. It generates 20% of the building’s electricity with photo-voltaic cells on a south-facing sun canopy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 12tonnes pa. Solar panels provide 40% of the hot water. Rainwater is collected and used to flush toilets, and any excess water runs off into a reed bed. The building is not air-conditioned but uses ventilation turbines to support natural ventilation. Fans mounted on the roof help to draw air through windows. It all adds up to a deeply green package which last year won an award as the best bespoke development outside London. |
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The Eliot Park Innovation Centre in Nuneaton claims to be not only green but cheap. The county council-owned business centre costs less in service bills than traditionally built equivalents because it is cheaper to heat. Centre manager Jason Croke compared electricity and gas bills with the nearby Coventry Techno Park, built about 10 years earlier, and estimates that EPIC’s monthly electricity bill of £1,500 is about half that of the older building. The service charge at EPIC is £52 per m2, against £58 per m2 at its neighbour, so being green does save the tenants money. But Croke adds: “It’s not entirely about money. The tenants are small, innovative businesses and, for 90% of them, the environment is very much on their agenda. It also counts for who they do business with, as many larger businesses like high environmental standards from the companies they deal with.” |
