This year, British Land have won the CIBSE Energy Management Initiative Award for their Portfolio Energy Reduction Programme. This award ​recognises the initiatives of the building owner or occupier who most effectively demonstrates energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions.

The judges were really struck by the quality, range of approaches and portfolios shown in this hard-fought category, but it was the stellar environmental performance of British Land that won it the top prize.
 
British Land marked a major milestone in its ground-breaking portfolio energy reduction programme in 2015 with the achievement of a particularly challenging target to reduce landlord energy by 40% compared with 2009, as well as the launch of a sustainability strategy to drive further environmental, social and commercial results.
 
This is likely to have a huge impact on the UK’s environmental performance because British Land is one of Europe’s giants. Its properties are home to more than 1,200 organisations ranging from international brands to local start-ups. Around 60,000 people work across its office portfolio and its retail sites receive an astounding 350 million visits per year.
 
The company’s efficiency programme has saved occupiers a whopping £10 million since 2009 and cut carbon by 60,400 tonnes – equivalent to the annual emissions from 9,300 homes. British Land is passionate about its work in this area and, as a result, claims to have achieved greater reductions than any other UK real estate investment trust. What’s more, it has delivered these reductions while maintaining excellent user approval.
 
In 2015, the business achieved energy reductions across 8.4 million sq ft of retail and office space – an area large enough to contain more than 190 football pitches. It has also delivered 3.5 million sq ft of new offices, shops, homes and cinemas rated BREEAM Excellent for sustainability since 2009.
 
But the company has gone even further. In 2015, lessons from its energy management programme informed the development and launch of a new sustainability strategy, with new targets to drive further positive environmental, social and commercial results.
 
Working closely with local managers, each individual property has a tailored Environmental Action Plan and automatic metering in premises alert managers when energy use exceeds agreed thresholds.
 
Building on the success of its efficiency initiatives, British Land is now partnering with occupiers to pilot features that promote wellbeing and productive working. It is also exploring opportunities to increase on-site energy generation and associated revenue, while continuing to focus on improving operational efficiency and occupier costs.

Project Team:

Building services engineers: Broadgate Estates, Colliers International, Montagu Evans, Munroe K, Savills, Smith Young and Workman
Building owner: British Land

This article was originally published on CIBSE's website here: http://www.cibse.org/Knowledge/Case-Studies/CIBSE-Case-Study-British-Land-Portfolio-Energy-Red