by Brianna Crandall — July 29, 2021 — The desire to work at purpose-driven and responsible companies has never been stronger, according to global real estate and professional services firm JLL. As a result, leaders will need to rethink their approach to work, the workforce and the workplace — utilizing the latest technology and sustainability practices and taking a more human-centric approach to shape a better world of work.
As the built environment is responsible for roughly 40% of global energy consumption, commercial real estate leaders are looking for ways to convert ambitious sustainability agendas into action. In response, JLL is launching Sustainable Operations — an innovative end-to-end sustainability product offering developed to help companies configure, launch and manage portfolio-wide sustainability programs
JLL’s Azara software uses machine learning to accelerate data-driven portfolio, facilities, space and workplace management insights from months to days. Image courtesy JLL
Additionally, JLL announced that its Corporate Solutions business has been renamed JLL Work Dynamics. By combining top real estate, technology and sustainability solutions, JLL is creating positive workspaces for clients across the globe. Work Dynamics offers integrated services with a dedicated emphasis on sustainability and technology, enabling clients to enhance the performance of their portfolios and help realize the goal of a more sustainable built environment.
Neil Murray, Global CEO, JLL Work Dynamics, stated:
As the world of work rapidly transforms, a more human-centric, resilient, and responsible real estate approach is required. Work Dynamics is more indicative of our purpose — enabling organizations to shape their workplaces to create a better world of work for their people.
The real estate industry is reaching a tipping point
With occupiers and investors starting to translate their green intent into ambitious sustainability targets, the industry is reaching a real tipping point on how to drive the decarbonization of the built environment, says JLL. The firm finds that 96 percent of its top 50+ global clients have set ambitious, publicly stated sustainability goals — but only 19 percent have a clear sustainability action plan with committed spend to achieve those goals.
Knowing that data alone will not solve challenges, JLL is launching Sustainable Operations, providing companies insights and action informed by data to help leaders achieve their goals. The Sustainable Operations offering is action-oriented and designed to help organizations reach their sustainability goals more cost-effectively and efficiently, no matter where they might be on their sustainability journey.
Building portfolio-wide sustainability programs
Through a holistic approach powered by technology, delivered by top talent and supported by integrated services, Sustainable Operations offers portfolio-wide sustainability programs to maximize return on investment (ROI) and scale globally at speed. This includes using JLL’s data and insights platform, Azara and the sustainability technology and analytics platform, Canopy — both built by JLL Technologies.
Azara uses machine learning to unite disparate datasets into one platform, accelerating data-driven portfolio, facilities, space and workplace management insights from months to days. In tandem, Canopy centralizes utility and environmental data to more efficiently manage and monitor cost and performance, allowing companies to quickly pinpoint opportunities to optimize sustainability performance. In 2020 alone, JLL clients used Canopy to track more than $300 million in energy cost savings and measure 193.8 million pounds in CO2 emission reductions.
Murray explained:
We track sustainability performance across 48,940 buildings, representing 2.1 billion square feet of client space, worldwide through Canopy. We’re able to tap the power of technology and analytics to better understand CRE data and not only offer strategic actions for our clients to improve their performance, but actually implement those changes for them to drive meaningful change. That is the power of combining technology and sustainability into a singular strategy.
Multiphased sustainability journey
JLL Work Dynamics is designed to meet organizations where they are in their journey, whether an organization is setting their first environmental, social and governance goals or is considered a sustainability leader, to create safe, sustainable, and inspiring spaces. The pandemic has ushered in a new age of responsibility, urging organizations to take bold action for their employees, customers, communities and society at large. With Sustainable Operations, companies can shift beyond traditional boundaries to realize more impactful climate resilient strategies and drive meaningful progress toward the transition to net-zero.
Delivered by JLL’s global team of more than 300 sustainability professionals and supported by its comprehensive suite of sustainability services — spanning strategy, reporting, ratings and certifications, assessments, renewable energy, engineering design and more — Sustainable Operations programs are optimized in real-time for teams to unlock the potential of data and take action to help accelerate companies’ progress in reaching their sustainability goals.
A JLL Fortune 500 financial client recently said, “We aspired to drastically reduce our global energy consumption by 2%-3% annually and lower carbon emissions by 40% per full-time employee. Working with JLL, we created a governance structure, used tools to improve data tracking and transparency and benchmarking dashboards for 80% of our global utility bills. These improvements allowed us to deliver our energy reduction goal more than three years early — cutting carbon emissions by 50%.”
For more information about JLL’s Sustainable Operations technology and services, visit the firm’s website.
JLL Work Dynamics, formerly Corporate Solutions, partners with leading organizations, across industry sectors, advising, creating, managing and optimizing environments that achieve a more human-centric, resilient, and responsible approach to shaping a better world of work. Through technology-enabled solutions, Work Dynamics creates safe and inspiring spaces around the world for people to collaborate, innovate, and drive meaningful change anywhere that work is performed.
With more than 45,000 local and global specialists, the team enables clients to enhance the performance of their portfolios and people to realize their diverse ambitions including a more sustainable built environment. Work Dynamics manages more than 1.6 billion square feet of real estate and has averted more than 112,700 metric tons of CO2e by advising clients on renewable energy projects. The firm’s Supplier Diversity program extends JLL’s corporate values of diversity and inclusion to its business strategy.
