Sustainable Benchmarks
Sustainability benchmarking of commercial property is a complex field with several issues to be considered, such as:
- Scope and availability of data
- Ensuring use of appropriate metrics
- Ensuring development of appropriate Key Performance Indicators
- Categorising properties into peer groups
- Establishing appropriate benchmarks and targets for different categories
The Benchmarks Working Group aims to consider all of the above issues and develop, and support continuous updating of, generally accepted carbon emissions and sustainability benchmarks for commercial property.
The group has 3 main objectives:
- Agree on a carbon emissions benchmark for members’ selected portfolio.
- Support and promote development of sector wide sustainability benchmarks by specialist market actors.
- Work with valuers to find suitable methods to incorporate the benefits of carbon reductions and improved building sustainability into property valuations.
The Working Group expects to publish a paper on benchmarking for the wider market before the autumn of 2009.
The Working Group is chaired by Tatiana Bosteels of Hermes Real Estate. The group works in collaboration with key industry bodies, IPD, Upstream and BRE, and draws on the experience of BBP members who have been collecting portfolio-level data for a number of years.