The British Land Company plc : British Land Believes That Energy Saving Ideas are Not Just a Lot of Hot Air

16 January 2012

British Land Believes That Energy Saving Ideas are Not Just a Lot of Hot Air

British Land, one of the UK's largest REITs is determined to show that energy saving initiatives are not just a lot of hot air.

After reducing energy costs by almost a third in its shopping centres and retail parks, British Land is now focusing its environmental efforts on office developments.

At an event hosted by British Land with University College, London's Energy Institute, Justin Snoxall presented findings which demonstrate that management by the landlord, energy saving behaviours by the occupiers and focused capital investment are the way to create greener and more cost effective office space.

British Land's trials of automated meter reading systems (AMR) show that landlords can have a direct influence on almost half of all energy used in an office building. Occupiers are switching on to the benefits of greater collaboration between themselves, landlords and building management teams.

In tandem with energy saving initiatives, British Land has introduced a six monthly energy consumption report for its occupiers. This shows each occupier's use of energy and compares it to the same period last year and their performance against all others in the building. The end result is friendly competition and incentives to become more efficient.

Monitoring and good management are key factors in energy savings and British Land's experience shows that a lot can be achieved with relatively low levels of capital investment, in additional metering particularly. The key finding is that active and expert management of the building is what really counts. Sometimes though larger scale capital investment is needed to take energy reduction to the next level. But who pays - landlord or occupier? Again British Land has crafted a solution - its own version of the Green Deal where British Land forward funds green capital investment and recovers these costs at no additional cost to occupiers through guaranteed savings in energy, which are given by the supplier. This enables the landlord to recoup investment costs through an increased service charge on the back of reduced costs for occupiers.

"There is a win-win opportunity for landlords and occupiers," concludes Justin Snoxall. "In our experience collaboration and effective management literally means more comfortable occupants in buildings and less hot air being wasted."

Notes to Editors

About British Land
British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £15.6 billion (British Land share £10.2 billion), as valued at 30 September 2011. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and visited by over 250 million people each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our occupancy rate of 98% and average lease length to first break of 12 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 62% of our portfolio, over 80% of which are located at prime out-of-town sites. Comprising around 27 million sq ft of retail space across 91 retail warehouse properties, 99 superstores, 12 shopping centres and 10 department stores, the retail portfolio is generally modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats. Active asset management delivers attractive space to both retailers and consumers.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 33% of the portfolio (rising to an estimated 37% on completion of current developments) with 7 million sq ft of office space including Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. We are investing £1.1 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.2 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and a 500,000 sq ft mixed office and residential scheme at Regent's Place in the West End.

Our size and substance demands a responsible approach to business and we focus on five areas which matter most to us and our key stakeholders: managing buildings efficiently; developing sustainable buildings; enhancing biodiversity; exceeding customers' expectations and focusing on local communities. We believe leadership on issues such as sustainability helps drive our performance and is core to our corporate aim of building the best REIT in Europe.
Further details can be found on the British Land website at