‘City-wide or City-blind?’ An Analysis of Emergent Retrofit Practices in the UK

Commercial Property Sector Tim Dixon, Professorial Chair in Sustainable Futures in the

Built Environment, University of Readingt.j.dixon@reading.ac.uk (www.retrofit2050.org.uk)

Who? – The ‘Regime’

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What? - Technologies

‘Our members are supposedly the leading organisations in this area yet

they’re all finding they’re going to make at least 30% energy reductions in their buildings just by better management and turning things on and off when they’re supposed to be, tweaking

controls, putting better systems in place’. (Influencer)

Emergent technologiesLifts with regeneration drives which recover energy that is usually discarded as heatVoltage optimisationPhase change materialsSmart enabled devices with sensors e.g. daylight harvesting, heat sensor map, wireless pneumatic thermostatsThermal server: an air source heat pump which has been modified for ground source and water source if necessary, or heat recovery.Transpired Solar Collector

Source: Prologis

Low hanging fruit….

LED Lighting…

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Why? – Barriers in the landscape

‘If you put too short a timescale on it, then you eliminate some of the better technologies’. (Owner occupier)

‘That capital expenditure decision or request will

compete for capital with other forms of potential investment in the core business’. (Financier)

‘This is the area where it, this landlord/tenant piece starts to make retrofit a difficult thing. It’s easy, if the building’s come

back to us, it’s empty, we’re going to refurbish it ‘ (Investor)

Timescale/payback…

Competing forcapital…

SplitIncentive…

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Issues of scale: ‘City-blind’?

‘We are kind of city blind. We do look at our portfolio, from a retrofit point of view we’ll look at our portfolio and say, OK, where can we get best bang for buck, if you like? ‘ (Investor/developer)

• Focus on asset management• Ownership

• Diversity/heterogeneity of property

• Lack of ‘sticky’ infrastructure

Why ‘city-blind’?

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Policy & Practice implications

• Clearer definition of ‘retrofit’ (RICS Guidance for Commercial Property Valuation)

• Approved products/suppliers list

• Consistency in standards is needed at a number of levels (assessment and

M & V)• Wider acceptance of soft

landings, monitoring and POE

• Understanding socio-technical innovations and diffusion: (market transformation/push pull are simplistic)

• Financing is crucial to success

• Actual energy performance should be transparent (DECs)

• Better integrated leadership at city level is needed -LEPs?