Quantifying the Business Benefits of Sustainable Buildings Summary of existing research findings Extracts DRAFT for discussion Alan Yates Centre for Sustainable Construction BRE 16 February 2001 Quantifying the business benefits of sustainable buildings Executive Summary This report has been prepared as the first stage in a project to define the business benefits arising from sustainable construction techniques through case studies This work is part funded by the DETR under their Partners in Innovation programme The project team members comprise BRE s Centre for Sustainable Construction BIFM BCO RIBA Argent BG Properties Friends Ivory Sime North British Housing Association and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive NIHE This project aims to motivate building occupiers managers and others involved in making decisions on the maintenance and procurement of buildings to adopt current best practice in their decision making through an improved understanding of the benefits that can be achieved There is a perception amongst these groups that more sustainable solutions in maintenance and procurement inevitably result in increased capital costs and or reduced market staff appeal The project will explore the benefits achieved by studying case studies across a range of sectors and issues It will seek to map out the benefits and begin to quantify them where this can be achieved Much work has been carried out on the options for more sustainable buildings and a number of guidance and incentive mechanisms exist to encourage the take up of more sustainable solutions These include the DETR s Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme Construction Best Practice Programme Movement for Innovation M4I Design Advice Scheme DAS The BRE Environmental Assessment Method BREEAM and the BSRIA Code of Practice to name but a few This has provided a wealth of information on how to achieve more sustainable buildings but little that allows key decision makers to assess the business case for adopting such solutions instead of well tried and tested ones Feedback from such schemes always comes back to the same issue The industry is ready and able to make changes but only when the case is proved This report is the first output of a BRE lead project to assess and attempt to quantify this case by looking at a number of case studies covering a range of sectors The project is funded under the Partners in Innovation programme and involves a number of influential and strategic industry partners The report summarises the current state of thinking over business benefits arising from such buildings and seeks to map these out No attempt has been ad at this stage to quantify them except in very general terms The report concludes that benefits are diverse and potentially very significant Many are hard and relatively easily quantifiable such as energy costs construction costs etc However the softer benefits relating to risk image profitability are currently unquantifiable They are the more significant though and should be the focus of future work under this project Project report number 203995 Building Research Establishment Ltd 2001 Quantifying the business benefits of sustainable buildings Contents 1 0 Outline of the Project 3 2 0 Context for Sustainable Buildings 5 2 1 Background to Sustainable Development 2 2 Sustainable Business 5 5 3 0 Decision makers concerns 8 3 1 Stakeholders Costs 8 4 0 Industry Perceptions 11 4 1 Perceived Investment Risks 4 2 Perceived Capital Costs 4 2 1 Value Management in a prestige office 4 2 2 The cost efficiency barrier 11 11 12 12 5 0 Benefits to Businesses 14 5 1 Introduction 5 2 Economic benefits 5 2 1 Financial 5 2 2 Risk 5 2 3 Management auditability 5 3 Environmental Benefits 5 3 1 Controlling Climate Change 5 3 3 Reduced ozone depletion 5 3 4 Reduced resource depletion 5 3 5 Pollution 5 3 6 Biodiversity 5 4 Social benefits 5 4 1 Health Well being 5 4 2 Image 5 4 3 Community These issues affect the external image of a business 5 4 4 Respect for People These issues effect the external image of a business 6 0 Quantification Project report number 203995 14 15 15 16 17 18 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 21 21 22 23 Building Research Establishment Ltd 2001 Quantifying the business benefits of sustainable buildings 1 0 Outline of the Project Aim This project aims to motivate building occupiers managers and others involved in making decisions on the maintenance and procurement of buildings to adopt current best practice in their decision making through an improved understanding of the benefits that can be achieved There is a perception amongst these groups that more sustainable solutions in maintenance and procurement inevitably result in increased capital costs and or reduced market staff appeal Whilst this does not appear to be supported by the growing evidence it presents a major barrier to greater sustainability in our building stock There are however many organisations who are beginning to recognise real and quantifiable benefits including the following capital cost savings reduced running costs increased investment returns increased productivity staff recruitment and retention more efficient resource use major image marketing spin offs Those tasked with developing proposals for procurement and maintenance of commercial accommodation are faced with justifying them to sceptical investors and high level management who tend to be and focused on short term capital costs Whilst there is much guidance available on solutions and actions of which awareness is moderately good there is little in the way of quantifiable data on benefits life cycle impacts with which to build a case for their adoption This project seeks to collect together existing data and reinforce this through studying a series of case studies to raise understanding and confidence These will be used to provide a simple method for predicting benefits arising from the range of practicable options available to premises managers The study will seek to include a range of building types ranging from offices and industrial buildings to retail and leisure These represent the significant proportion of the commercial building stock in the UK and therefore the largest potential for making real progress towards reducing impacts Project Methodology Our approach is based on the need to work with those directly involved in decision making both with new and existing buildings to identify and quantify benefits actually achieved Approximately 14 case studies
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