While I generally approach decision making with a slant towards the use of logic and hard numbers, my experience tells me that cold logic is not always the best path to follow. To get a brighter picture of an issue or the impact of one’s actions, one must also look at life from a different perspective - one which panders more towards sentimentality and emotion. My views below are by no means the be-all-and-end-all of how to approach target setting; I have simply drawn from my experience in big corporate finance, where trading floors operations are driven by numbers and algorithms, and from general life experience and observations in the changing environment. With that said, let’s look at how real estate organisations can use some of the principles that I have learned to set environmental targets that matter.

There is very little doubt surrounding the fundamental role that energy efficiency plays in the success of commercial real estate making a return once the world reaches somewhere close to normal. Whether you refer to it as sustainability, energy efficiency or building optimisation, the need for us all to ‘run buildings better’ is increasing exponentially.

There will be an understandable emphasis placed on healthy workplaces in the coming months but that can’t be at the expense of a building's buildings carbon footprint. Equally, businesses must do what they can to minimise excessive operational costs after months with little, or no revenue. With running costs associated with electricity, gas and water constituting up to 50% of a commercial building operating costs, efficiency measures are a viable cost-saving measure, but this can’t be at the expense of occupant well being. You see where I’m going with this…

The three underlying driving factors of building optimisation are:

The hotly anticipated GRESB results are here! I almost feel like I should have organised a fanfare, that's how important these results have become for many stakeholders in the real estate space.

The Fabriq OS platform is being updated, just in time for Spring! Here's a quick overview of what to look out for.

As the 2019 GRESB submission cycle will be in the mind of those in the real estate space soon (if it isn’t already), this is a good time to talk about Fabriq's partnership with GRESB and how the Fabriq OS platform is being updated in collaboration with GRESB to make the sustainability reporting process more streamlined for stakeholders involved.