Capita Puts Sustainable Property Management Guide into Practice
03/08/2016
Capita Real Estate has launched the second edition of its Sustainable Property Management Guide. This provides colleagues and clients with a single reference point to help them understand the latest environmental legislation and outlines best practice opportunities to improve performance, giving simple answers to questions and providing useful links.
POSITIONING CAPITA REAL ESTATE AS A LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
MANAGING COMPLIANCE RISKS IN A RAPIDLY EVOLVING LEGAL LANDSCAPE
DELIVERING FINANCIAL SAVINGS FOR CLIENTS THROUGH EFFICIENCY INITIATIVES
REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND SUPPORTING SUSTAINABILITY GOALS
Situation
Capita Real Estate, is a multidisciplinary property consultancy. The company works to continually improve sustainability performance, in line with its ISO 14001 certification and evolving best practice.
In February 2014, Capita Real Estate launched its first Sustainable Property Management Guide to help staff and clients understand legal environmental responsibilities and good practice opportunities to improve performance. This was informed by the BBP Managing Agents Sustainability Toolkit. Since then, legislation and best practice have moved rapidly, and sustainability has continued to grow in importance for property owners. In January 2016, Capita Real Estate launched an updated edition of the Guide.
The Guide is for Capita Real Estate’s:
- Staff involved in managing sites, including surveyors, property, facility, building and centre managers, providing a first point of reference to understand their environmental responsibilities and how they can monitor, manage and improve performance.
- Clients, providing useful links to internal and external resources and specialist services that can assist with sustainable property management.
Actions
In updating the Guide, the Environment Consultancy team consulted colleagues and reviewed:
- New and forthcoming environmental legislation that impacts the real estate investment sector, such as the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES), Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) and Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations, Assessment of Carbon and Energy Performance, amendments to Waste Regulations and Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases Regulations.
- Evolving best practices in sustainable property management.
- Growing risks relating to climate change and flooding.
Key revisions include:
- Guidance on how clients can prepare for the impact of new legislation and address risks posed by flooding on investment assets.
- Improved advice and tools for colleagues, including a resource efficiency checklist and guidance on a range of risks, from flooding to pseudomonas (bacteria in water).
- Updated contacts for Capita Real Estate specialists, who can assist colleagues and clients with different areas of sustainable property management.
The Guide is produced internally by Environment Consultancy, with the support of an in-house designer, so there are no external consultant fees.
For wider sustainable property management guidance, readers are referred to the BBP’s Managing Agents Sustainability Toolkit, developed by property owners and managers, including Capita Real Estate.
Benefits
The Sustainable Property Management Guide positions Capita Real Estate as a leader in sustainable property management, which is valued by clients such as Royal London Asset Management.
The Guide helps colleagues and clients:
- Understand and manage environmental risks in a rapidly evolving legal landscape.
- Achieve financial savings, with the best environmental option generally also the most resource efficient and therefore most cost effective one, where implementation costs are not prohibitive.
- Improve environmental performance, e.g. across 19 Royal London Asset Management properties, Capita Real Estate achieved 9.1% less energy use year-on-year and saved 779 tonnes of CO2 in 2015.
Challenges & Achievements
LEGISLATION
How to keep on top of evolving environmental legislation?
The Guide is reviewed periodically and revised to convey changes in legislation and best practice. Publication of the second edition was postponed for a few months, so that Environment Consultancy could include confirmed details for some of the forthcoming environmental legislation. In between full updates, Environment Consultancy also publishes briefing notes, which are circulated internally and externally, and published on its website and intranet pages.
EMBEDDING
How to make sure the Sustainable Property Management Guide is used?
Senior management is fully supportive of the Guide and its implementation. Environment Consultancy worked closely with the marketing team to launch both Guides, sending briefing releases with download links to all relevant contacts, including staff, clients, partners and media. The Guide features on the website and intranet and is covered in Capita Real Estate’s annual health, safety and environment training sessions. As a result, the Guide is widely used and has been the starting point for many initiatives, from efficiency programmes to an innovative retail park partnership with a local agricultural college, inspired by the section on landscaping and ecology. Sustainability actions now form part of the appraisals process for facilities and property management colleagues.
Find out more
Lydia Burdett
Environment Manager
http://www.thinkcapitarealestate.uk/create-deliver/energy-sustainability/
Read the document: Capita Sustainable Property Management Guide 2016
Paul Anderson, Head of Property and Facilities Management at Capita Real Estate“Sustainability is as important to Capita Real Estate as it is to our clients. By embedding sustainability into our core management strategy, we offer clients a property management service that manages environmental risks effectively and delivers efficiency benefits.”
