![]() The group has a £90m retrofit fund and spent £19m on this building. The future occupier of Holbein Gardens, a local asset manager in Chelsea, will save 50% on energy compared with typical London offices, Grosvenor claims. British Land is already doing this at some sites. There is a strong market for the latter, while using reclaimed steel is “really complicated and expensive” and harder to get insurance for, says George.ĭownes says material passporting – stamping specifications on to steel and other materials and barcoding them – should help as the secondhand materials market evolves. Other reclaimed materials include blue bricks and raised floor tiles. ![]() About a fifth of the steel used (24 tonnes) is reclaimed, including columns from the firm’s revamp of the Peek Freans biscuit factory in Bermondsey, east London (Grosvenor offloaded the build-to-rent project to the US developer Greystar last summer). ![]() The company has opted for low-carbon products rather than concrete, such as Thermalite aircrete blocks with tiny pockets of trapped air for high thermal and sound insulation, and cross-laminated timber. Ceiling heights were expanded by leaving the cooling and heating pipework exposed. The windows have been enlarged, letting in more natural light, and can be opened on every floor sensors tell you when it is a good idea to do so to save energy, says project director Philip George. Retaining the 1980s brick facade saved 59 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to the UK Green Building Council. Grosvenor, owned by one of Britain’s youngest billionaires, Hugh Grosvenor, hails Holbein Gardens as a big step in its ambition to become net zero by 2025. But given that 80% of 2050’s built stock is already standing, the need to reduce the impact by refurbishing existing buildings is clear.” It warns: “Without action on embodied carbon, the UK’s 2050 net zero goal is not achievable.”ĬBRE says: “There are tough choices ahead around whether operationally efficient newbuilds or refurbishments are most effective at reducing overall carbon emissions. The real estate investment group CBRE predicts that embodied carbon associated with buildings will make up 50% of built-environment emissions by 2035, up from 28% now, as operational emissions reduce “but we carry on building”. The BPF has urged the government to regulate embodied carbon and has called for planning reforms to prioritise the reuse of buildings, and a VAT exemption for refurbishment works. The World Green Building Council has calculated that two-fifths of global greenhouse gas emissions come from constructing, heating, cooling and powering buildings. When deciding whether to retrofit or knock down and build again, developers have to weigh up the balance between “operational” carbon – having a brand-new building that is highly energy-efficient to run – against “embodied” carbon – the substantial emissions caused by making building materials and constructing a building from scratch. While every building is different, retrofits can offer a more cost-effective way to create highly sustainable modern office space that can attract competitive rents.” “You can quickly find that it becomes commercially unappealing to take forward large projects. “As interest rates go up, the cost of capital goes up,” says Anna Bond, an executive director at Grosvenor. Higher borrowing costs, following the Bank of England’s 10th interest rate rise to 4% in February, are another factor. ![]() “Carbon saving has undoubtedly gone up the agenda for, I hope, all developers but certainly all of the publicly listed developers, particularly on the commercial side.” “There certainly is a shift,” says Tim Downes, development director at British Land, one of the UK’s biggest developers.
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