The Better Buildings Partnership’s first work on the owner-occupier dynamic was its ‘Green Lease Toolkit’, published in April 2009, which received industry-wide recognition. That Toolkit provides guidance on the inclusion of environmental provisions either in the lease or in a Green Memorandum of Understanding which sits alongside the lease and is not legally binding. These provisions set up a framework for collaboration, but are worthless unless they result in action to achieve resource use reductions.

A number of BBP member organisations have achieved positive results in reducing the environmental impacts of their buildings by engaging with their occupiers through Green Building Management Groups – forums comprising the owner, occupiers and building management representatives and established to achieve real reductions in resource use in their building.

These groups provide a platform from which to review the environmental performance of the building and to share ideas on how to improve its operational and occupational efficiency. They provide owners with an opportunity to explain to occupiers how their building is currently performing and, with appropriate sub-metering in place, allow individual occupiers to compare their performance against one another. This can help stimulate action by occupiers to reduce their own carbon emissions and even result in healthy competition to achieve the greatest reductions.

The BBP Green Building Management Working Group, formerly chaired by Justin Snoxall of British Land, was tasked with capturing the learning developed by the BBP members in running such groups and distilling it into practical guidance for the wider industry.

The result is the BBP Green Building Management Toolkit, which provides guidance on how to establish and run a Green Building Management Group (GBMG) and by doing so effectively manage, monitor and record environmental improvements in a commercial building. In developing this Toolkit, we have sought to produce comprehensive, yet flexible guidance, which allows different buildings and stakeholders to adopt tools which are appropriate for them.

It includes the following:

• Guidance on how to set up a GBMG, with examples of best practice already in place
• A template presentation which can be used in a first meeting to set up a GBMG
• A template agenda for GBMG meetings
• A template Environmental Action Plan to capture actions planned and completed
• A suite of reports which can be used to assess progress and communicate results
• A template Memorandum of Understanding, which sets out how an owner and occupiers intend to address environmental issues in their building.

It is our hope that this Toolkit reaches a wide industry audience and is adopted as a practical, effective tool to help reduce occupancy costs and improve the environmental efficiency of our commercial buildings.