COMMENT In November, I joined an EG panel to discuss the progress made towards net zero between COP26 and COP27. Discussing progress in 2022, we were forced to take a realistic view. Better Buildings Partnership chief executive Sarah Ratcliffe remarked that “we are dancing in the dark”. I agree but would go even further. To quote the singer John Mayer, “we’re slow dancing in a burning room”.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some fantastic projects out there representing the best in sustainability and social consciousness, typically concerning high value prime assets. But we need to expand the narrative to include subprime and tertiary assets, at scale, and with significantly more urgency than we have done.
Tenant engagement
On the panel, our focus beelined towards data. Data is our eyes, our ears and our sense of touch when it comes to decarbonising our building stock. It intrinsically connects us to every asset, enabling a tactile interaction through which a baseline can be drawn, plans made, projects implemented and impacts recorded. Learnings can then be applied to the next and the cycle continues until every asset is improved.
As if that were not reason enough to put data on a pedestal, increasing numbers of landlords are required to submit legislative reporting such as TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) and ESOS (Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme), on top of voluntary submissions to ESG rating mechanisms and benchmarks such as GRESB, REEB, LETI, CRREM and NABERS.
Prior to ESG reporting, landlords needed to concentrate only on communal areas and void energy supplies, with no requirement to liaise with tenants regarding their usage (to note, ownership of usage data sits with the consumer responsible for paying the bill at the time of consumption). Now, due to ESG and scope three reporting requiring tenant data, engagement with tenants is crucial if we are to successfully reach 100% data coverage. With communal, vacant and occupier data owned by different parties we face complications of engaging with multiple sources. It is, however, necessary to overcome these barriers in data collection to reach net zero targets.
Interestingly, the location of all consumption data in the UK is incredibly straight forward. It is held in national data lakes created to aid the management of the grid and underpin the market. Collecting data should therefore be simple. But historically this data has only been accessible to energy retailers and other specific market participants. Thankfully, access is slowly being opened to teams like ours, but there is still a long way to go. The issue is no longer the administrative burden but the collaboration of all organisations to allow data access.
What are you hiding?
In 2022, ZTP’s big stride towards net zero was the creation of our ESG Enable service, which gathers permission from tenants to access their data and then compiles it for reporting and analysis. Our experience interacting with occupiers to gather permission has been an insight into their individual journeys to net zero and their willingness, or reluctance, to collaborate and help others.
One portfolio, consisting of 700 demises, showed 40% of tenants granting permission within the first two weeks of requests being issued. Most were single occupancy tenants, eager and willing to help and equally happy to avoid the admin of collating and reporting their own data to landlords. As tenants become more educated about why we need the data, permissions are increasing daily, pushing us towards 100% coverage. What I find simultaneously surprising and disconcerting is a tenant that declines permission. For those hiding behind company policy or offering pre-cleansed annual data, we are forced to consider what they are hiding. Moreover, should a company or person have the right to block the broader journey to net zero?
To encourage the sharing of data, which will help us all meet our corporate, national and global net zero targets, ZTP is launching the Carbon Collaboration Initiative. This will enable companies to demonstrate their commitment to share data securely so others may move forward on their own net zero journey. The hope is that through collaboration, we will dance out of the dark and into the light.
Alex Hill is managing director of ZTP
