Focus on new buildings may cost the earth

The British Property Federation has raised the stakes in helping to meet the Government carbon emissions targets by developing and launching an energy efficiency measurement and benchmarking tool for existing commercial properties.

The Government is concentrating its efforts on creating zero- and low-carbon buildings, but these initiatives will take at least 100 years to significantly reduce CO2 emissions, as only 1% of the commercial building stock is renewed each year.

If cuts are to be made as quickly as advocated in the Stern Review and other reports, the focus needs to shift to existing buildings, which make up 99% of all buildings, and where efficiency gains can be made quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Recognising this, the BPF decided to take matters into its own hands and develop a method of measuring, benchmarking and reporting the energy efficiency of existing office buildings – the Landlord's Energy Statement (LES).

LES helps landlords to understand the energy used by landlord's services (things like heating, air conditioning, lifts and lighting in common areas) in the office buildings they own. They can use the information for individual buildings or aggregate it across their property portfolio to build up a picture of their portfolio's total carbon emissions

The benchmarking element of LES rates their buildings' energy use and carbon emissions against sectoral benchmarks, showing how individual buildings are performing compared to others in their sector. It also identifies where improvements could be made and tracks changes in performance over the years.

It is intended that LES will become the industry-standard method for recording and reporting energy efficiency and will be a useful corporate responsibility reporting tool.

As the LES process is based on actual energy-use data, it could be used to inform the statutory targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions that will accompany the Climate Change Bill.