Members of the Better Buildings Partnership, a collaboration of the UK’s 28 leading property owners, have improved their portfolio energy efficiency by an impressive 25%, accruing £16 million in energy savings and reducing consumption by a total 145 GWH since 2011.

In a period where political uncertainty is high for the environmental agenda, leading UK real estate owners are demonstrating that business will continue to play their part in driving energy reductions, recognising that action to tackle long-term climate and energy security risks cannot wait.

Each year, in the largest voluntary initiative of its kind, BBP members provide energy consumption data for over 7 million sq m of UK property.  This is used to create the Real Estate Environmental Benchmark (REEB), the only publicly available performance in use benchmark for the industry.

Today’s report Real Estate Environmental Benchmark Update: 2016 Snapshot highlights key facts and environmental performance trends of BBP members’ portfolios since 2011.

Key highlights include:

• 25% improvement in energy efficiency of the BBP members' portfolio     
• 24% reduction in like-for-like energy consumption            
• 3.1% average like-for like reduction per year
• Over £16 million savings in energy costs               
• 145 GWH of energy saved despite 71% increase in floor area

BBP Programme Director, Sarah Ratcliffe said: “We are delighted to highlight the significant progress made by BBP members in reducing energy consumption across their portfolios. Given the significant portfolio ‘churn’ many property owners experience each year it can be challenging to achieve continuous improvements across whole portfolios. And, for those assets retained over longer periods, members have already captured the ‘low hanging fruit’ on poorly performing assets. This makes this progress all the more impressive and demonstrates real leadership and dedication.”

Group Head of Sustainability, Hammerson and BBP Chair, Louise Ellison said: “REEB is one of the only initiatives that gathers performance in use data at scale and enables investors and owners to compare their properties against robust benchmarks developed by the industry for the industry. The data is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved through committed industry collaboration.  What is also clear though, is that this is not enough. We need to do much more as an industry to address our significant environmental impacts and move from being part of the climate change problem to being part of the solution.”

See the full report here.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) is a collaboration of the UK’s leading property owners who are working together to improve the sustainability of the UK’s existing commercial buildings. The organisation's aim is to deliver market transformation through sustainability leadership and knowledge sharing across the UK property industry. The BBP currently has 28 members who represent in excess of £180bn Assets Under Management (AUM). The Better Buildings Partnership is a not for profit collaboration of the UK’s leading commercial property owners who are working together to improve the sustainability performance of existing buildings.

It has 28 Members who include Aberdeen Asset management, Aviva Investors, Blackstone, British Land, Bruntwood, Cadogan, Canary Wharf Group, Capital & Regional, CLS Holdings, Cording Real Estate Group, Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, Great Portland Estates, Grosvenor, Hammerson, Hermes Investment Management, intu Properties, Landsec, LaSalle, Investment Management, Legal & General Investment Management, Low Carbon Workplace, M&G Real Estate, SEGRO, Shaftesbury,  Schroder Real Estate, TH Real Estate, The Crown Estate, Transport for London and Workspace.

For further information please contact Lucy Elderfield.