Landlord Energy Rating

We strongly support the roll out of Display Energy Certificates (DECs) to the private sector, but we believe that, in their current form, they may not achieve their vital aim of driving market change in reducing energy consumption, in addition to their primary purpose of reporting operational energy use. Our members believe that by making energy performance data accessible and simple to understand it will influence both owners and occupiers to increase efficiency. We, therefore, took the findings of the UK Green Building Council Task Group Report ‘Carbon Reductions in Existing Non-Domestic Buildings (March 2011)’ and undertook a project based on the recommendation that the industry needs to develop a methodology which can be used to produce a robust ‘Landlord DEC’.

In this context, we set out to develop a Landlord’s Energy Rating (LER) for the multi-let office sector. The LER aims to differentiate energy efficient office space in the marketplace, creating the potential to feed through into market valuations, as the NABERS Energy system has been doing in Australia. The LER project looks to build upon the existing British Property Federation Landlord’s Energy Statement (LES) and be consistent with the DEC operational rating, to develop a LER which provides additional granularity to that available from whole building or occupier DECs by focusing on the energy use which can be influenced by the property owner. 

Four key development stages where identified at the onset of the project:

1. Specification: With the support of our members, develop a detailed specification for the rating tool covering the data that will be required, a proposed benchmarking method, a rating and grading scale and the content to be included on a certificate.
2. Rating Tool: The production of a fully functional prototype rating tool together with full documentation of how it works.
3. Prototype to Online Platform: This will take the tool from the prototype stage to a web-based solution made available to the whole industry. It is hoped that this robust tool will be then adopted as a ‘Landlord DEC’ to drive significant change across the sector.
4. Commercialisation: An industry standard and certification system offered to real estate owners and operators which would be run by an independent third-party.

Where we are

We’ve completed the first two stages of development and the following documents are available here:

• A specification and issues report outlining our approach and decision making in developing the LER.
• A fully functional prototype rating tool (Excel based).
• Full documentation of how the tool works.
• A detailed case-study report providing details and results where the LER was carried out at four BBP member buildings.

We continue to seek opportunities to take the project on to further stages with interested parties.