by Brianna Crandall — December 5, 2012—Global financial and professional services firm Jones Lang LaSalle and the Better Buildings Partnership (BBP), which works to improve the sustainability of London’s existing commercial buildings, have published a new report that emphasizes the importance of measuring and achieving reductions in energy consumption. For the past four years, Jones Lang LaSalle has been working with the BBP to measure the actual energy performance of its members’ managed properties in London, which total more than 200 buildings.
The report, titled A Tale of Two Buildings, looks at the actual energy consumption of two offices, one with a good Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating and one with a poor EPC rating, and asks which one is actually more energy efficient.
U.K. Energy Performance Certificates rate how energy efficient a building or residence is, using grades from “A” (most efficient) to “G.” For businesses, the British Government requires an EPC whenever a business premises is rented or sold, a building under construction is finished, or a building is changed in any way that gives it more or fewer sections allotted for separate use that are heated, air conditioned or mechanically ventilated.
Nick Hogg, senior consultant in Jones Lang LaSalle’s Sustainability team, said, “We have been working together to understand the true environmental impacts of buildings. Our objective in this report is to demonstrate how Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) alone are not sufficient to deliver the government’s targets to ‘de-carbonize’ the U.K.’s built environment. EPCs focus on ‘design intent’ or theoretical energy efficiency.”
Hogg continued, “In the report, we consider the actual energy use of over 200 office buildings in London and compare their performance with their EPC ratings. Our findings demonstrate the issue of correlation between EPC ratings bands and actual performance. We emphasize the importance of measuring and achieving reductions in actual energy consumption in buildings. In doing so, we present the case for the introduction of mandatory Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for commercial property.”
The research also explores how successfully the property industry is tackling the issue of reducing actual energy consumption. The BBP’s members have achieved an eight percent reduction in CO2 emissions in the last two years along with compelling financial benefits: a reduced spend on energy bills totaling over £4 million.
Christopher Botten, program manager at the BBP, added, “There are still sizeable barriers to overcome in order to ensure continued and even greater improvements in the energy efficiency of our commercial building stock. It is therefore vital that owners and occupiers collaborate to share good practice and develop mutually beneficial common solutions.”
