A number of barriers still exist to the adoption of energy efficiency and low-carbon technology in commercial buildings, according to Bruno Gardner, Managing Director of the Low Carbon Workplace at Carbon Trust.

Buildings produce around 37% of the UK’s carbon emissions or around 200 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

The Carbon Trust predicts that approximately 60% of the buildings that will be in use in 2050 have already been built today. This means that refurbishing existing buildings will be a huge part of the emissions reduction challenge.

However, Carbon Trust research into the potential energy savings that can be made in non-domestic buildings found that a 35% CO2 reduction could be achieved by 2020 through cost-effective measures.

The net benefit of these measures to the UK economy would be at least £4 billion. Over the longer term, CO2 reductions of as much as 75% can be achieved by 2050 at no net cost to the UK economy, according to the Carbon Trust.

Measures

A number of measures and new policies have been introduced to encourage the adoption of energy efficiency and low carbon technology in buildings.

However, Mr Gardner said that progress has been slower than hoped for with a number of obstacles in the way.

He said that the barriers include misaligned incentives (the ‘landlord-tenant divide’), a lack of knowledge on how to develop and operate low carbon buildings and capability gaps within the supply chain.

These create inertia where no one party feels they can make a difference and consequently little happens.

Three steps

Mr Gardner outlines three steps to tackling this issues:

1 - Everybody involved in the development process needs to buy into a shared vision to develop an energy efficient building.  With a number of stakeholders involved, from investors and landlords to developers and tenants, it is often difficult for any one stakeholder to make it happen alone.

2 - Energy efficiency needs to be an end-to-end focus. It should not be an afterthought or bolt-on, but the focus needs to begin at the design stage and remain central throughout.

3 - Development decisions need to reflect commercial pragmatism as well as sustainability best practice. He said that the reality is that for energy efficient buildings to become mainstream they need to be economically sustainable.

After the work

The job doesn’t finish once you’ve created or retrofitted an energy efficient building. It needs to be used in an energy efficient way.

Mr Gardner said that it doesn’t matter how well designed a building is, or how theoretically energy efficient it is, if it is used badly then efficiency will suffer.

Alexander Creed, Head of Resources & Energy at Strutt & Parker comments: “To date, the commercial property sector has been able to ignore energy efficiency. This cannot continue as the government is focusing both carrots and sticks in terms of support and restrictions on property so as to reduce the energy that is used and reduce carbon emissions. We are urging all clients to review their portfolio so as to understand what energy challenges and opportunities they have.”