International Sustainability Alliance

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International Sustainability Alliance – Leading The Way To A Sustainable Built Environment

With more than 40% of carbon emissions in the UK coming from buildings, the built environment offers the largest potential for the reduction of greenhouse gases. While the UK industry has long taken a lead in driving down carbon emissions by designing sustainable new buildings to achieve high BREEAM ratings, by far the largest opportunity lies not with new build but with existing stock.

Only 1 to 2% of buildings are renewed annually and until recently there has been little effort to measure and improve the existing building stock. Small improvements to energy efficiency and management of existing buildings can have a major impact in terms of reduced carbon emissions, as well as reducing other environmental impacts such as water and waste, while ensuring lower running costs.

Assessing the environmental impact of existing buildings is a much more complex proposition than that for new build and the BRE Trust Group of businesses began research on this many years ago. By 2006 it was clear that a “BREEAM in Use” for existing buildings could be developed and this was finally launched as a pilot in 2009.

To our delight a number of International property owners, investors and occupiers who were beginning to realise the major challenge – and business potential – that faces them in reducing their carbon footprint approached us to ask if they could use the BREEAM in Use method and database to evaluate their property portfolios.

Towards an alliance based on trust

Recognising the importance of gaining a better understanding of their property portfolios, and because of its reputation and independent ownership by the BRE Trust, they have been working with BRE Global to benchmark their buildings and adapt the database to provide clearer CSR reporting and develop realistic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which can work across borders and countries. This will also give them a head start in the process of obtaining third party certification.

Naturally enough, this isn’t just for altruistic reasons. Investors and owners are also starting to realise the commercial and financial benefits of aligning sustainability with financial performance and embedding it within overall business strategy. In most cases, it is possible to turn an environmental risk into an opportunity and studies are beginning to show that energy efficient and sustainable buildings can have a positive effect on value. For example, a recent report by Eicholtz, Kok and Quigley1 demonstrated that the rents of energy efficient buildings are 6-8% higher than conventional buildings, and that occupancy is significantly higher and less volatile.

To facilitate these requests, BRE Global initiated a membership organisation funded entirely by subscription called The International Sustainability Alliance (ISA). Its aims are to bring together a global network of property leaders – occupiers, developers, owners, investors – dedicated to achieving a more sustainable built environment by creating a benchmarking club to measure the performance and environmental impact of existing commercial buildings.

What will ISA provide?

Before you can improve buildings you need to be able to measure them. ISA is gathering data on members' portfolios to help create the world's largest environmental property database. This will enable an organisation to assess its impact on the environment at individual building as well as portfolio level, thereby identifying which properties are performing at optimal level and which are sub-optimal, so that appropriate strategies can be created. The database includes KPIs and consistent metrics that cross national boundaries. Data from more than 2,900 buildings across 29 different countries has already being collated in only the first few months of ISA’s existence.

While it is early days, some researchers estimate that using the environmental property database to identify and take action on day-to-day building management activities could reduce the running costs of a typical office building by up to 25% each year.

The data collected will also help members produce more accurate and verifiable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting. This is important for organisations who are including environmental and/or carbon targets into annual reports or dedicated sustainability reports. ISA will play a key role helping members monitor progress over time, and provide more authoritative reporting on a regular basis.

Once data has been gathered on buildings, whether at an individual building or portfolio level, ISA will also provide a route to straightforward, low cost, third party certification. This is a key issue for owners and occupiers who want to visibly demonstrate their environmental credentials and make sure that they are not fooling themselves into believing they’re doing better than they actually are.

Breaking the circle of blame

Through its database and wider networking activities, ISA is bringing together property owners, managers, investors and others together and driving carbon reductions by breaking the circle of blame. ISA will help members develop a common understanding of how buildings perform as they do, and what measures can be taken to improve them and what this means in terms of value and return on investment.

This will help dismantle the traditional “circle of blame” whereby for example a developer might say that there is no demand from investors for sustainable buildings; a potential occupier might be frustrated about the lack of availability of buildings with real green credentials, and so on.

ISA will also help members get ready for impending green legislation, which is increasingly pan-European or international in character, and lobby for sound regulation that is based on factual, evidence-based science that will really improve the environment. One issue, for example, that is growing in significance is a pan-European approach to eco-labelling.

Who is the ISA suitable for? How do companies get involved?

ISA already has a significant membership drawn from some of Europe’s largest corporations, developers, property owners and investors. This includes organisations such as EDF Energy, one of the world’s leading energy companies which manages an international property portfolio of in excess of 3000 of their own buildings. One of EDF’s particular reasons for participating is that they want to ensure they are practising what they preach.

ISA is also attracting a lot of interest from the investment community. For example, Amsterdam-based investor APG manages worldwide pension assets in excess of 240 billion euros, providing pension schemes for the education, government, construction and service sectors, and accounting for more than 30% of pension funds in the Netherlands.

Membership of ISA is open to organisations who demonstrate a corporate interest in the sustainability of international real estate, and either own, occupy or manage large commercial property portfolios. There are various categories of membership – Founder Members will set the strategic direction of the organisation, as well as the nature and content of the KPIs and benchmarks; General Members can access the KPIs, benchmarking facilities, and research outputs provided by ISA and can attend events; and Associate Members who are typically universities, professional institutes, trade bodies and Green Building Councils.

Full details of membership and fees, together with a full list of members to date, are available on the ISA website at www.internationalsustainabilityalliance.org

Carol Atkinson is Chief Executive of BRE Global Limited. BRE Global is an independent, third-party approvals organisation, offering certification of products, services and systems to an international market. Its testing and approvals are carried out by recognised experts in world-class facilities. The International Sustainability Alliance can be contacted by telephone at +44 (0)1923 664462, or by email info@internationalsustainabilityalliance.org