Latest / Built to Perform / Timber, EPCs and Measuring the Real Impact of Buildings | Built to Perform Joe Jack Williams

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Timber, EPCs and Measuring the Real Impact of Buildings | Built to Perform Joe Jack Williams · Built to Perform

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think within the industry, we're getting further and further away from designers who know how to build.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so you see this kind of yawning gap between the two of them where it's actually, you know, the intentions are great, but it's not necessarily practical.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Joe, and welcome to the Built to Perform podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hi James.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me on.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming on.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to just really dive straight into it, really, if that's okay.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um start with who are you and why do you do what you do?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good question.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: So my name's Joe Jack Williams.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm head of regenerative strategy at Bywater.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Very difficult to say, realizing that as I've rebranded myself.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I look after the kind of ESG and sustainability of the business as well as looking after the strategy.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so really understanding as a developer what we can do, what's in our agency, making sure we're kind of pushing things forward.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: So really trying to make things a bit better.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I do it because A, I really like the technical challenge.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's part of me that just loves that technical challenge.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: But really, I used to be a mechanical engineer and I thought it really interesting about the impact we had.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So you think about energy back in the day, and it's slowly kind of morphed over the years.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I worked at Fielding Flag Bradley um for 15 years as a kind of researcher, and really found that sustainability was something A that you know, I enjoyed the technical side of it, but something that really kind of resonated with me personally.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: So a really fantastic way to think about the bigger impacts and see our kind of place in the world.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's nice to think that you're doing something good all day rather than I don't know, filling informs spreadsheets, writing reports, sending emails about reports, sending Teams meetings about reports about spreadsheets, you know, that's actually the day-to-day of it, but seeing that as kind of like bigger picture, I think, is really exciting.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who don't know, what does uh regenerative uh strategy actually mean in practical terms?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So traditionally, so actually, when I was hired by Biowater, I was their head of sustainability.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I uh, you know, Architects Declare came in in 2019 and really regenerative sort of principles really sort of bubbled up and it was a bit unknown.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when you think about sustainability, it's been kicking around for 40 years, something like that, maybe 35.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: But regardless of what it is, it's not really what it's not really achieved what it's set out to do.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's made big inroads, but we're still, you know, seven out of the nine planetary boundaries.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: We've gone past the tipping points.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: That was only last year.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it's clearly not working.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I think part of it is this kind of comms and marketing piece.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: So regenerative is talking about not just making things, you know, even for the next generations, it's about making it actively better.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think as a kind of policy to talk about sustainability, saying you want to make things better means you also have allies.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you think about working, say in certain places in the States, obviously, very recently, sustainability's not got a great name over there.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, working with them, you know, it's finding an ally is really important.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if I say I want to make the world better, nobody so far has said they want to make the world worse.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've instantly got an ally, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really nice, it makes our life much easier.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: So our our regenerative future strategy is about how do we get that process going.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think part of it is about being sort of humble and understanding that we are going to make negative impacts in the short term, but we'll make some positive impacts.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And slowly, as we work as a developer, we should be constantly making things positive all the way through.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: What that looks like, I don't really know.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it could be anything from you know lithium mining for batteries, or it could be about the timber we use.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a really complicated thing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, but it's quite a nice way for people to think about it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: How am I making things better or worse?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you're making things worse, then could you make it better?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can't make it better, why not?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then maybe next time we can fix it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so going a bit beyond like say the Brunton report, which is essentially making it no worse for the future generations.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to do something, you're trying to do something which is actually bettering the future for future generations.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think it's about aiming high and failing gracefully.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: If we fail gracefully, but we knew we had a you know strong ambition, fantastic.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: At least we've got somewhere towards it and we can think about what those next steps are.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of this is about saying, okay, how are we gonna fail?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we gonna fail?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Reflecting on that, what's the next steps?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: A really important bit of this is kind of knowledge sharing, which is why I'm really happy to be on this podcast today and chance to you, because the more you can share about the things we know, the more everybody else can do it.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's not about being non-competitive, you know, we're always gonna be a year to six months ahead.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because we need to test our ideas.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: But if you think about development cycles, you know, it could take us six years to realise the issues you've created with a project, you know, globally.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: So the more we can share about it, the more we, you know, everybody can benefit, the more we can start to move forward quickly as an industry.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's part of it, you know, understanding if you want to make a positive impact, how do you make a positive impact?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: You get everybody on board, and that's where you can have a far greater range of um, I suppose, impact.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've said impact about a million times, but it is all about impact for us, yeah.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's quite a refreshing viewpoint.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think traditionally the industry has been really poor at sharing ideas and sharing wins, but sharing for failures as well.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's quite refreshing to have someone like Bywater, which comes out and actively talks about that and is honest about that, and you know, other other developers can learn learn from it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it was really interesting when we when we first met Jones, we were talking about you know the performance gap and recognising we think our buildings can perform in one way, but actually perform in a completely different way, and that's partly because we make terrible predictions, but also because we don't really understand how buildings work.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we need to find out how our buildings work and spend a bit of time looking at them, thinking about them, talking to the people that are in them.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're not building buildings to sculptures, we're building buildings for people, they have a purpose.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And as soon as you start to realize that, you know you've got to go back, you've got to share those knowledge, you've got to go back and find out how it's going on with it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we certainly I've been pushing post-occupancy evaluation for years with no success.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like despite how much you know, charm and hair swishing I've been doing, I haven't quite managed to make it stick.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it's slowly, I think we slowly get there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've just got to lead by example.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you could define just very briefly, kind of the performance challenge you are solving at Biowater yourself.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the first one.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So Biowater are majority aimed by Sumatobo Forestry Corporation.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously, a forestry company, big Japanese corporation, um, they want more timber to be used globally.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Completely understand it, and we're completely aligned.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: We think timber's a fantastic material to build in.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: In the UK, um, we have pockets of it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if we're if I was in Scotland, most of the homes there are built in timber.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: If we're in Wales, more are built in timber.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: In England, very few buildings are built in timber.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things we're trying to do is unlock timber construction.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we think that is a kind of regenerative material.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, it takes a bit of time to grow, but it's so much better than you know, it takes 40 years to grow a tree where it takes a hundred million years to go concrete, right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, in terms of timescale, I don't have to worry about what the next, you know, eon is.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what we're currently really struggling with.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, where do we get the materials from?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Who can build it?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Are we confident that they're building it in the correct way?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's our current push.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in balance of that, we've always got an eye on operational energy, we've always got an eye on you know making healthy buildings.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's you know, it's our first one.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Get the timber right because it's lower carbon, that's better for everybody.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we can start to think about some of those other bits as we push and pull it through.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then what first drew you to sustainability, if we're going to call it that, uh in in commercial real estate?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I so I I was a precocious young engineer, uh, I know shocker.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I really so I was you know, 20, I was in a placement year.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: New building regs, part L came in in 2006.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: We started in 2005, we were kind of gearing up for operational energy and building physics, and uh it was just really interesting as a kind of start point.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the more you start to think about that energy and the carbon impact, you know, people talk about uh you know a kind of carbon lens, and I really agree with it.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: The carbon is just a lens and you miss all the other stuff, but it's a really nice way to think at start that journey about the other things.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, really, I use energy and carbon, start thinking about the broader aspects of it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: When I was uh I did a PhD all about how buildings perform with FCB, and that really gave me a broad idea about building performance and those bigger impacts.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: And what FCB Studios really allowed me to do was have a bit of brain space to think about research, and I realized very quickly things like material sourcing, we just didn't have uh enough of an understanding, even at FCB Studios who are kind of pioneering these things, and it you know, it it's a huge web, it the supply chain is incredibly complex, and they start to unpick these bits, and so yeah, sustainability started, you know, simply with building regs back in 2005, and it's grown into you know, working with people like you know, amazing people at Letty or the net zero carbon building standard, which all kind of hang off this same kind of curiosity, inquisitiveness, and this idea of doing better for the planet.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, started when yeah, young precocious engineer and you know couldn't grow a beard.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Look at me now.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I still can't grow a beard, so yeah, there we go.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's not necessary, you don't need the beard to be a sustainability wonk.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'd very much like one though.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then so who are FCB?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So FCB are Field and Cloak Bradley Studios, so an architectural practice, really interesting, started by Peter Clerg and Richard Fieldon back in the 70s in the oil crisis.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they were concerned about energy availability, not so much about um you know carbon or sustainability, it's about how do you make low-energy homes.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they've been doing great things for years, so they helped with the first Brian project, for instance, in the 90s, as well as passive solar shading and passive buildings in the 80s.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, really kind of pushing things forward, and my role there was to keep them you know a couple of pages ahead of everybody else, and that could be you know, is it VOCs and buildings or is it you know daylighting studies?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, great architects doing loads of great stuff.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And from working in an architectural practice, how how has that shaped how you sit in kind of a development world now?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I I've got quite a lot of technical knowledge, and I suspect for a lot of developers that's quite rare.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, 20 years of designing buildings one way or another.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, understanding how the systems work, but also, you know, I I was a passive house consultant, so I know how to detail buildings pretty well.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know how to do the building physics, I know how to do embodied carbon, uh, I know how procurement works.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I, you know, I'm not a great cost consultant by insurance management.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm I'm okay at lots of those things.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, working for a developer means you have to be kind of on top of all of those spaces and understand the implications of them so you can make decisions effectively.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it puts me in a really great position now.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: So although I sit a bit back from projects because I'm really thinking about you know regenerative futures or sustainability, um, and I, you know, carbon's a nice safe blanket.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: I can really push and pull the design team to ask the right questions, you know, from years of experience.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, when I was at FCB Studios, we'd be working on you know an Eden project in Dundee or a Herbarium at Kew or delivering houses in Bristol.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you you end up with a really broad kind of idea about how projects work.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: So when I when I this is what I take to every you know development with buywater, and I think it's great, and what's really nice is I'm able to call the shots a bit, you know.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: I can a lot of my time previously, and I'm sure you've experienced this, James, is trying to charm client clients to do the right thing.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm the client to charm because I've I'm kind of already there, my foot's already in the door.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also I've got that kind of paperwork, that weight to kind of push these things forward.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, has there been anything significant which has changed your your you've changed your mind on since obviously the pastel times and now in terms of sustainability and regenerative strategy?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the the biggest thing is probably embodied carbon, I think, has changed it.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um so uh you know a short story.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So at FCB Studios, we funded a PhD in whole life carbon.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: And because in this is in 2010, we've been focusing on operational energy.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And when you start to factor in embodied carbon, actually the the picture starts to shift, and as we start to see the you know the grid decarbonising, we see that this kind of carbon discussion about energy goes away.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Energy doesn't disappear as a key issue, it just becomes a slightly different issue to talk about.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: And embodied carbon became a great lens to look at actually how we build stuff, and that that really helps focus the mind on you know, where's our material coming from?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a field or is it a hole in the ground, or where's the hole in the ground?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: To who's building it, who's been exploited building it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: If anybody's been exploited, it might be it's a great product that's helping people along, but also how much we're wasting when we build stuff, you know, quite often, you know, plasterboard, quite a lot of plasterboard gets thrown away.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Some bricks are really hard to you know cut in half, so you lose quite a lot, and it gives a really interesting viewpoint that's a kind of you know, it's a gateway into a bigger world of sustainability.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for me, embodied carbon's that that kind of start point.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's surprisingly easy to calculate nowadays.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's loads of great figures for it, and it means that we can start to talk about some of the other important aspects of energy rather than just talk about carbon.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: We can talk about affordability a bit more, we can talk about energy availability, we can talk about geopolitics and supply chains, which is great, really exciting.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have any answers for them, but I wish I did, I'd be much happier.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone would be a lot happier, yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the same.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so in in your in your role and kind of what you're trying to achieve at Bywater, um how do you maintain high performance in in what you're trying to achieve whilst also receiving the commercial pressures which obviously come within a development?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so this is the big learning curve for me in the past year and a bit since I've been at Bywater.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I've always there's always been this kind of perception that sustainability is adding things on and our kind of regenerative futures is really trying to undo undo that process.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: So when I talk to um SME house builders at the minute, there's there's a kind of idea is like, well, we can make this low carbon, but I've got to put PVs on the roof or I've got to add in this system or batteries.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um the key for me is finding a sort of points where everybody wins.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we're thinking about efficiencies and how to build things quicker that also work for us in terms of sustainability.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's finding cost neutral ways to do it, and that that's really exciting for me.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um when we're starting to underwrite our projects, we start from this kind of point of view of is it low carbon?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Can we make it low carbon?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Has it got all the right bones for it?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: So our projects start off on the right foot, our project team starts off on the right foot.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I've got quite a goey framework for them to achieve, which um is really interesting because some people read it and realize what I've asked them to do, and we have a spirited discussion going like, wow, Joe, that's okay.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: You really all of that?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yeah, all of that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's about getting that dialogue because there are places where we can't achieve that.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Fine.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's talk about why we can't achieve it and we'll chalk that experience up for next time.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it's about failing gracefully.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, what we're trying to do is get them in early, get the design to consider all those aspects that can be cost neutral.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And really good examples are you know, detailing about how timber frame sits together.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you get it right, actually, things like air tightness is really easy to achieve, insulation is really easy to achieve.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: If you get it wrong, it's just an endless headache, and it's costs on costs on costs, and then risk priced in.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: So getting it so a contractor can see how to build it from the start, that's the easy win.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's about for us, it's about you know getting it right in the instance as it's built, rather than um trying to fudge it back at the end.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um it is tricky, yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I guess with with the contractors and how they how they price stuff, if they're if they're seeing something which maybe is outside of the norm, then there's a fear that you you're paying a premium just at for their risk factor, which they're they're building into it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and it and I get it, you know, there's part of me that love to rail against contractors and say, oh, it's dreadful, they should really pull a finger out and understand it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: But they take all the risk, and I think it's on designers and consultants when they're putting packages together to think about how it's going to be built and constructed.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think within the industry, we're getting further and further away from designers who know how to build, and so you see this kind of yawning gap between the two of them where it's actually, you know, the intentions are great, but it's not necessarily practical.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so all of a sudden it sits in the contractor, the son is to not only make these details work, but also to make them achieve what we want them to do.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's understandable we put risk in.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I always remember at Fielding Clay Bradley, um, one of our architects put together this really nice little package of drawings, which was like how to do airtightness on our windows, and it was super easy.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember them, you know, they're printed out on site, they know how to do it, they know the orders to build the stuff in.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: They worked it out with uh contractors as well.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody knew what they were doing because if you get it wrong, you can't go back and fix it, it's behind the wall, it's really tricky to do, it's really invasive, costs a lot of cash.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, the cost of somebody spending a day or two writing the drawings, writing the spec, it solves all that risk for the contractor.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: They don't put in an extra five percent on the window air tightening, you know, it it's really basic stuff, but it's that personal side to that human side to it, recognizing that it's not just a spec or a report or a drawing, it's somebody's job to fit that in.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: How are they gonna do it?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, I think you're right, it it people are moving further and further away from it.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know one of the things which I was quite fortunate about is I I got on hand I was building before I came and became a charter building spare.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that sort of experience of actually being on the tools and doing the work gives you so much better grounding to then actually go and start designing stuff because you you can see where something physically isn't gonna work.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: It looks great on CAD, but actually, is it can you actually build it?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm I've been redoing my kitchen for what seems like ever.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it's only like four or five months.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: But as soon as you have a tricky detail, you know, it takes thought about how do you overcome that, how do you make it work, how do you get the right outcome.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, these these hands are pretty much made for you know sending emails and pointing at things occasionally.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I'd love to be better at it, but it's there is a skill to this, and I think we've really devalued it.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, and it you know, it goes back to you know, we we've been talking about iBoss, yeah, about understanding how buildings operate and how do you make a building operate?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it's exactly the same process.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's all very well and good for me to throw an air conditioning unit in a building and go, well, yeah, you go, it'll keep it hot and cold whenever you need it.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, how does it work?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: When does it work?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: How does the occupant know how it works?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that intelligibility and making things actually clear.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: If you say you want it hot, how does it get hot?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is it noisy?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is it quiet?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a draft?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's we create stuff for people.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: If we don't create it for people, we're just creating problems for ourselves.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so moving on to buy water, and um obviously you talk about the 1.5 degree pathway.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um what does that what does that mean?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean in terms of the real decisions you have to make in terms of a developer?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we're trying to put ourselves in a 1.5 degree pathway through our through our properties predominantly, because that's where our impact is.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that means aligning with a net zero carbon building standard.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: So for us, I think you know, as we hinted, we set out to achieve that at the very start.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Our underwrite has those kind of prices baked into it.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: It should be roughly cost neutral.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: There can be a bit of an uplift.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we're making sure our underwrite includes that.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: So when we're looking at when it's rental or you know, leasing or whatever the the project's going to use, we can make sure that it all balances out.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: So for us, it's an essential part of what we want to do.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: The last thing we want to be is, you know, in 25 years, 50 years, people point back at by water and go, oh yeah, no, that's the developer who ruined it all.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I think we'd all rather be like, oh, that's the developer that led the transformation industry.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if you know, because we work with Sumatoma Forestry, Sumatobo Forestry was set up in 1691.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: So when we think about like long-term impacts, you know, they're still looking after the forests they had from the 17th century.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is probably where we need to get to as a developer, and I think we're getting really good at it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're starting to think about okay, what happens if we have loads of rental properties in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it gives a really different flavor about um what you can do as a developer and all those opportunities.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really exciting.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: So for us, yeah, it's exciting.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, our big thing is timber.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: So embodied carbon-wise, we're most of the way there.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we lighten our foundations, we have a lower carbon structure.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: That is a significant portion of it.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: But it doesn't mean we can take the foot off the gas.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: We still have to think about all those other bits that go into facades.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at something like our Paradise project, uh down in Lambeth, you know, a quarter of the embodied carbon is from the facade.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's a mega amount of carbon in there.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's incredibly durable, it's completely circular, you can take it away, and it's going to be fine.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Very pretty.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Very pretty, it is very pretty.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it does uh, you know, it self-cleans when it's next to a railway line, so it needs to be fairly functional.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's it's a conscious decision to put that much carbon in.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, we talked about timber and it plays obviously a central role in by water and all the projects.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: But where does it generally create impact?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I think what would be useful to understand is also kind of where is it misunderstood, especially in the industry.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've got my own viewpoints on it, and obviously in terms of the misunderstandings, but um, yeah, it'd be good to hear your thoughts on that.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so I mean, for us, we use it because it's low carbon, renewable material.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: We think it's a much better material to build with, it's safer on construction sites, you know, there's less wet work, um, it's quicker to erect.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, for us, when we're thinking about the benefits of it, you know, we're thinking about you know, not just carbon.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think carbon's really important, but we can put that in a little carbon box over here somewhere.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're still a commercial developer, it still has to be the right thing for us.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: What we're trying to explore at the minute is you know, do we get higher rate uh rental for it or do we get higher leasing for it?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, and the only way that works is if you start exposing the timber.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when you start to expose the timber, actually you get these amazing kinds of um people come into timber buildings and they feel different, they feel more relaxed, they see it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw a great bit of research from UCL that came out last year, which is a meta-analysis about terpenes, the smell of timber, which says that they help alleviate diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think timber buildings might cure death.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not really sure, but I mean that's a pretty strong selling point.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, the there's a also going back to like when I walked around by water, and I think I did something which you said every every other person does it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I did is walk up and I touched it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really interesting because nobody walks into an office building with plasterboard walls and starts stroking the walls, but you know, it's a big thing for us.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um probably you know, it's something we've got to think about longevity, and most of our columns are covered in intimescent, but they get stroked so much that that might be a key risk.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: But it is, it's it's tactile, it's soft, it's warm.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there's a there's a real benefit for the people that are in there.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Bringing value to that is really hard, you know.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: That when we think about the Rick's Red Book valuation, it doesn't have something about you know touchability of walls to add value.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we have to operate this kind of weird world where we're leading the industry forward and we're taking the risk to say no, we think it's the right material, generating our own comparisons so we know in future that we're going to be lower carbon.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, really, yeah, really exciting world to be in.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the misunderstanding?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so most people think that it's a t it's a fire risk.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's the big thing we always talk about.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Funnily enough, it's really not a fire risk, particularly.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: There are issues with it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, mostly that it's building regs make life quite difficult.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, up until recently, um, we had part B of building regs enable timber frames to be built.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: It got rewritten post-Grenfield Tragedy, sort of 2022, somewhere around there, which made it slightly trickier.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: But there are other ways, there's standards we could use.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Those standards have also been rewritten to make using timber a bit harder.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means you've got to be really careful of it.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we're designing timber, the first thing we do, you know, ROBA stage one, we're bringing up our insurers and saying, This is what we're planning to do.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we get that ball rolling really quick.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: We talk to London Fire Brigade when we've got detailed design.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is what we're doing.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking to building control really early, and we we're providing them with packs of information that's really clear, transparent, so their job's easier and they have confidence in us.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: For us, really, the issue isn't fire, the issue is moisture.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: 97% of all insurance claims about timber are about moisture, and that could be rain, it could be leaky pipe work, it could be rising damp.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: All of these kind of things are the bigger issue, and that's you know, it's a management thing.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, again, getting the design team to think about how they design in timber is reducing in penetrations through CLT slabs, for instance.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: The end of a CLT slab, it wicks moisture along it.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: So water sits on top, it's actually less of a risk.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: You can kind of mop it up, and it's very rare, it soaks through.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Once you expose the end grain, moisture can move very quickly.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: So don't drill holes through CLT and run certainly pipe work through it because if it leaks, you're stuffed.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that could be um, you know, cold water pipe work.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Think about moisture and condensation happening on the outside of the pipe.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's still a risk for us.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, we we we have a pretty good process for understanding how we manage that.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's that's the risk.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, at what stage in a project lifestyle would you say kind of the ambition is most vulnerable to dilution?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think probably there's there's a couple of key points.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: First one is up to planning.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: What what we aim to do is be a knowledgeable developer, so we should have a pretty fully formed idea of what the project's gonna look like at stage one.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's because we need to de-risk an awful lot of things.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that first stage two, as we're running up to planning, is where things can be derailed through design.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: Now, actually, in some ways, that's not the end of the world because, in terms of cost and risk for us, that's the time to for it to go off, you know, ski whiff, right?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't put that much money into it, we're kind of fine.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's the first one, and that's kind of manageable.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: The bigger one is when we start to get you know contractor involvement and actually making sure that our employees' requirements, our specifications, and those kind of signs to it represent what we want them to do, and that's what we're paying for.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because as soon as we go, you know, typically we go design and build, at that point, we relinquish an awful lot of control, and our our kind of vision is you know, not us banging our fists on the table and demanding stuff, our vision is in you know, 2,000 pages of documents that you know are open to interpretation or could be vaguely worded or whatever else.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that that for us is where we see things being diluted, and again, that's that's the word of contraction, you know, contractors that we have to kind of manage.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, that that's our biggest concern.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and as you start to get towards the end of a project and time frames get squished and compressed, we need to make sure those final vision bits really are achieved.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you can see it in you know, from an occupant point of view, those are the bits that people see.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: People aren't interested in you know sheet piling foundations when they're moving into a building.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: They want to know it's there, but they're not going to go inspect it.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas they are gonna go, you know, actually, this timber wall looks scuffed, or this plasterboard wall lining doesn't work, or that light switch is in the wrong place.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the the kind of occupant-centered things that people really start to complain about very quickly, you know, and weirdly enough, easy to fix and manage.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, really, for us as a developer, what we're trying to do is make sure we get all that structural bit we're right, because we're thinking about the risk and making sure those those aspects are kind of key.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're trying to almost then jump to that end bit to say, okay, are we gonna get people to rent this building, lease the building, buy the building?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what's our exit liquidity gonna be in 10-15 years if we're gonna sell it on?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna be looking at this?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: All those aspects that mean it's it's it's running correctly.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is it gonna be measured performance-wise?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, really tricky.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it it comes down to the quality documents we get from our design teams.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, give our design teams credit, they're on it, they're usually really good.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's very few times where we have to have that about a contractor.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: And if it comes down to it, you know, we just have to dip into our own pockets and fix it.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: There are certain things that we really have to manage.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you talked earlier about kind of like your your mandated, this is what I want in this project side of things.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: What do you insist on measuring, even kind of when it's inconvenient?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we do lots of things, we measure things like biodiversity net gain.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of our sites don't have any biodiversity on site, and we will look at things like urban green factor, and and actually, those are really tricky targets to achieve.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, actually, as soon as you start to ask people about them, you kind of go, Well, sort of urban green factor, and they'll, you know, a bit of a shrug of the shoulders, you know, you know, it'd be point two.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, we want to achieve 0.4.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I go, Oh, it's a bit tricky to fit on this.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, tricky, yeah.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Impossible?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it without them trying, I can't make a case to say that it doesn't work.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I can't say we haven't achieved it, and you know, I've got to go back to the board and they say, Why haven't you achieved it?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, it's it was tricky.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: What I wanted to be able to say is, well, you know, it was gonna cost X amount and it's gonna um we're gonna lose this much area, or it didn't work with this kind of layout.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, urban greening factor, biodiversity net gain, those kind of sides to it, those are the trickier, softer ones.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've got some really goee targets for PV generation on site.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Full disclosure, all the people who have been complaining about PV generation, the net zero carbon building standard.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: That was a lot of that was me pushing that forward.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was really goey.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I know now my design teams are struggling with it.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that's fine.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think we should have a struggle with it.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we need to have that discussion to say, well, why can't we do it?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then we can provide that evidence back to the net zero carbon building standard.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, those are kind of tricky, yeah, fun discussions where we're going, okay, what's going on top of this?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's always gonna be a nice little rooftop area.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's like great with PVs on it, because that's kind of what we need.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what would you say is the difference between reducing harm and then creating positive impact?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, this is this is the kind of exploratory bit.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, what what we're hoping to do by aligning with the 1.5 degree pathway is have emissions that sit within the biocapacity of the planet.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, really, what we want to do is reduce considerably below that so other things have the ability to, you know, kind of emit where they're more essential.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, I'd really struggle to put a carbon emission target on a hospital.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like morally quite tricky.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think we just need hospitals or you know, schools to some extent, you know, these are things that are foundations of our society, and we probably just need them.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so if we can start to reduce the carbon emissions we have so that we can have these other kind of social things, whether that's hospitals or schools or other kind of essential items, then that provides that bit of capacity.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so it's achieving our 1.5 degree pathway, sleeping within our biocapacity, and then offsetting.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the next thing we're doing, working out how to offset in a kind of responsible way.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think for years there's been pretty poor offsets, and for years I was one of the people saying that I think offset's cheating.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's essential, and I think there's a really important bit about societal importance.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, as we start to think about how um, you know, the sort of ramifications of colonialism, for instance, there's all these countries around the world where we've made life really difficult, not you know, us but previous generations.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe we should be investing them through carbon credits to help them put them back on a better track.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, you're in this kind of ethical mindfield about what's the best thing to do, you know.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Is it stuff in the UK, is it somewhere else?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that that's the next thing.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen a project where the starting ambition and the delivered outcome didn't align?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, like every project majorly, majorly.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, I've seen I think it's difficult to talk about in general terms.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've never seen a project that's been delivered, certainly on my watch, which has been so far off.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen elements of a project be a long way off.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think a lot of that is interesting, operational energy is the easiest way to look at it.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this has come from years of building buildings that are incredibly complex and people not really knowing how they work, and also poor commissioning.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I used to work a lot in school design.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: You have a very hard deadline about when people move into the building.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can't stop the kids going to school for a week because the Department for Education is quite rightly a bit annoyed, and also the parents who are like, What am I gonna do with my kids for a week?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you end up with really hard deadlines, and that's led to loads of kind of you know, from really simple things to really complex aspects.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's it's things like commissioning ME and PMSs, which you know, 20, 30% is actually witnessed, I guess.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the one thing that often gets put in a stagging list as something which sits beyond PC when actually quite often it's a fundamental.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it isn't often viewed like that though, is it?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, and I think part of it is because it's so complex.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a bit more unknowable, it's a bit harder to test.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if I've got a cracked tile, pretty much everybody can see there's that tile's cracked, great.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, you just need to lift that out, or you know, oh, this door's sticky, great.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we can all do a sticky door because you just need to use it and it we've used doors.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: If you're looking at a duct and you're trying to work out if the flow rate's correct, then you need a flow hood.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: You need to a know what it should be in the first place, you need to know what to use the equipment and you know who's got the equipment, and then you need to understand what the ramifications are of it and and what the causes could be.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: I always remember we we did a school and I was doing a study on it, and there's a whole wing where people were feeling you know it was a bit drowsy.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: We were monitoring the air course.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: The air course it was terrible, we couldn't work it out.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: And during commissioning, to help with the commissioning, they'd locked off a couple of the ducts.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: So there was no fresh air at all in this whole wing.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: But it'd been like six months, so none of us picked it up.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I like to think I'm pretty good at this.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't thought there was no air coming through, you know, it's just madness.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it's it's it was a rush job for them to get through it and commission the bits so they could get make sure the fans were working and the fans of the big bit rather than the occupants.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, they're all this kind of seasonal commissioning, getting back into the building and testing it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's where you see things using you know two to three times the amount of energy than we predicted.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, heating systems that are on hot and cold.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Even in my office, my office is maybe two or three years old.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I work in one of these big co-working spaces.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the MEP systems are difficult, is how I carefully put it.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: So in winter we put a temperature in, you know, so we want it to be 23 degrees or 21 degrees, whatever it is.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: As soon as it gets to 21 degrees or whatever the set point is, it then starts cooling back down to 21 degrees, then it gets heats back up to 21 degrees, and then it cools back down again, which means we're constantly sat there in this like hot breeze, cold breeze, all the time, wasting loads of energy.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: If I want to cool it down, I can open the window.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it's cold outside.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, really that's that's where it comes from.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Complexity, I think, is where we we find those big sort of disparities in performance.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in in a project, what would you say is kind of like a decision which are effectively irreversible?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: This makes me sound like such an MEP engineer.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the services, right?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: I just think it's really un undervalued.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um so if we think about what the services are doing, the services are there to make the building function.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: But if we've got a building that's orientated the right way, actually the services are going to be kind of delivering that.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe actually to roll back on my statement, talk out live, but maybe it's that massing.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, once you've got the massing, if it's right, then it's great, if it's wrong.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: You're just chasing losses all the way through.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where you know the services has to come into it, and all of a sudden you find yourself struggling with a difficult set of systems to try and make it work.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's interesting.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: I know from a days in architecture, you'd already have you know the client that come in, you know, here's our site, here's the mass thing, make it work.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, well, you know, that is you know, a whole wall of south-facing glazing, and you want it to be this low energy and this low carbon.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: You we can't have both, and we we can have both, but it's expensive, really expensive.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, sort of shading, we're looking at other kind of MEP systems, hard work.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so moving on, and I'm gonna go back to the word sustainability, but how how do you avoid it becoming a tick box exercise?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, our so our point of this is making sure that it's got it's measurable all the way through.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really difficult for us to make any claims about our buildings that don't have a measurable outcome.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that could be a whole raft of things, whether that's energy and carbon or urban green factor or BNG or whatever else it could be.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it means we're measuring impact and the outcome of it, not so much measurement for the sake of measurement.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at things like um is it Goodhart's law, where it says that you know, as soon as you start to measure things, actually, people find ways of gaming the system.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we have time sheets, time sheets, yeah, exactly, right?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and you know, I've heard all these kind of stories about people working around it, you know, I'm getting more from this.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, yeah, you're just getting more of that measure, you're not getting the outcome.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we're always trying to measure the impact.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as soon as you start to think about what the impact is, then it kind of refocuses the discussion.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, we still have Briam on our projects.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Am I interested in BRIAM for the sake of a stiff cut?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: No, what I'm interested in is the impact of it.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: And in some ways, when we're going through a BREAM assessment, we're picking and choosing bits, going, look, I don't see the impact on that.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas I can measure the impact on this.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: When we talk back to our investors, when we talk to the occupants, we're saying, no, we did this and it it created this.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we could see whether it worked or it didn't work.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as soon as you start to catch things in these kind of approaches, A, it makes decision making for us much easier.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if we're talking about, you know, what was the other one the other day?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, wastewater heat recovery systems.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they're going, well, you know, if you put in this system versus this system, uh, you know, your EPC rating changes.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, great, I can't measure an EPC rating.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can't go back to a build and see if it works.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: I can measure the energy use.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me what it is in energy, and then I can make an informed decision.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: And as soon as you get into that pattern, life becomes a bit easier.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you've mentioned EPCs.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: So passion project of mine.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what's your view?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've EPCs.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm gonna go soft on them.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: EPCs were written with a very specific purpose, and it was about energy efficiency, and it was to solve a problem about how do you create a universal benchmark to benchmark against.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: So they came up with this nice idea about notional buildings, and I get it, I really see where they came from.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: But the flip side to that is EPCs are not a measure of energy use, they're a measure of energy improvement over a building that doesn't exist.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: So really great for regulations, but really disincentivizes lots of aspects.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, a really good example, um, talking about the Goodhart's law, if we're thinking about EPC rating, which is a percentage improvement over a notional building, the notional building has the same form factor and shape as the building we design.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: If I build a building which is as simple as it possibly could be with a minimal surface area, so it's got a really low form factor, to get efficiency improvements on that, I've got to improve the insulation windows, all these kind of bits over and above a building which is really you know, shonky has got projecting bits out of it, really terrible form factor, it's much easier for them to make an improvement than it is for a building that starts off efficient.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's the kind of fundamental thing for me that suggests the system doesn't work.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's about it incentivizes the wrong thing, it incentivizes us to put more insulation in but for no benefit.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas actually, if we move to something which is saying, okay, well, what's the energy use?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, EUI.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: EUIs, exactly.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, my work with Letty and a carbon building standard we fought tooth and nail for EUIs.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Energy use intensity.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I forget I hang out in the world where everybody knows EUIs, but it but it is, it's measurable.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can measure the internal area of a building because there's a RICS guide that tells us how to do it.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: Most people have got a pretty good idea.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: I've got an electricity meter that comes into my building, I've got gas meters, I've got you know any other energy meters I can need, and I can measure it, I can work those things out.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in some ways the benchmark shouldn't be, you know, it's whether it's passive house or 60 or 100 or 8.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think we should probably have the benchmark of zero, and we just say how far away from zero we are, you know, and that could be net rather than growth, so how much energy you generate in a site.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's about making sure that it's a benefit to it.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's really important we talk about it in terms of energy, not in terms of carbon created because of energy.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because our grid changes every year and it fluctuates every half an hour and it becomes super complex all of a sudden.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: So to make it intelligible, let's just measure that.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can't measure the carbon emitted by my energy sources very easily, but I can measure the energy.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do that.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh it's an interesting point, really, isn't it?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh this this theoretical versus versus reality.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to and it's and it's more simple as well.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's you know, when I talk to investors, so we have investors who come in from all around the world, what they're not is experts in buildings.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: What they're interested in is aspects of probably of ESG and finance.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: So when I talk to them about EUI, uh they go, I don't really understand that.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when I talk to them about embodied carbon, they go, Oh, carbon's bad, I get that.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when I talk to them about urban green factors, oh, I don't really get that.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: What they really like about things like Briam and EPCs is they get a thing which says, Well, we've got an A, I've got loads of stars, or it's gold, because they necessarily have to be overarching.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, my big challenge at the minute is not can I get design teams to deliver this and build it.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, my challenge is can I get anybody to understand it?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's the heart of it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: When I sit down with them and talk about um retrofitting buildings, you know, that they're great, they're engaged, they want to know more, but they're not building performance professionals.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same, you know, can we put PV panels on the roof?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Yeah, of course we can, yeah, that's fine.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm talking about making fundamental changes to structure, which are lower the carbon and provide more space and make it more energy efficient.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: But they don't understand that.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, it comes to you know, swishing my hair and charming them into it, I suppose.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess that's where maybe neighbours is that nice middle, can be that nice middle ground, gives people the stars.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Something easy to understand, but fundamentally it's measured on energy use intensity.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: And something like well is really good for health and well-being because you've got to go back and measure it.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of binary.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: You don't hit that, you don't get it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: And the same with passive house, you don't have the the paperwork, you don't get the passive house.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: So all these kind of systems where it's it's about measured impact, all of a sudden have way more weight than say, you know, a Briam.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, neighbours is a great example and is a fantastic level for us.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's quite an interesting point which you made, is you're you're scoring it during the design stage, and then you're also going back and measuring it once it's in use.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all three of those are hitting hitting that air, which is interesting.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for you as a developer from that mindset, who's accountable once a building is complete and not occupied?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of does the f responsibility fade too early in your eyes or for most developers, or where where where does it sit for you?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think it a lot of it sits for the developer.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of it sits, you know.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I feel personally responsible in some ways about the performance of our buildings because if I'm saying a building's going to be sustainable, then I need to make sure it's sustainable, and that's not to say that we might have tenants who are using lots of energy, but it's on us to have the agency to say, you know, we've got the ability to talk to them and say, you're using lots of energy.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: Are you aware of it?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Do you need help managing it?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want a bit of input?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because for us to provide a bit of time to talk to them isn't a significant task, but we might have an awful lot of impact on that person, and whether that's you know, somebody who's it's their home or it could be an office, using the fact that we have an understanding of portfolios, understanding of energy, and we have expertise in-house, we should use that.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think too many developers sort of shy away from it and they'll talk about you know tenant areas and landlord areas and they'll split them all out.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, fine, I think that's really important to say what they have direct control over, but we still have indirect control, we still have a voice.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's the same when we talk to industry.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know something can be done better, it's incumbent on me to talk about that as often as I can to get people to do better things.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's one of those kind of guiding principles about the industry is if we wait for regulations to drive it, we're just gonna get nowhere.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we need to make sure that we recognize when we have the ability to control something and push it forward when we can.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: And with the industry, where where do you think it's still kind of falling short?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, oof, yeah.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: All over the place.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it is an unbelievably complicated industry.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think we forget that.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you think about all the trades that go into it and and the weight that goes on buildings, you know, it's our homes, it's our livelihoods.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite emotive, isn't it?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's more so than you probably consider when you're in there in the midst of designing it, probably.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you're doing a door schedule, you're not thinking about the fact that this is somebody's home necessarily.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which is actually a really interesting interesting point, because um when I was doing work for Cannes Council, um one of my previous employers, you know, we'd be going up and down high-rise buildings, and they have all should all have the same doors, which are fire-rated, etc.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the amount of the doors which have been replaced by the tenants to look like a front door of a house rather than a flat, yeah.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which you know is a motive for them.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: They they want it to look like a front house front door, not a not a standard flat front door, but actually what they're doing is the fire risk which they were creating was huge, right?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, but it is very it is very emotive, isn't it?
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: On such a simple thing which you probably don't think about.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think I mean that's a really great example.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you think about we're creating places you want people to be proud of, then if you think about that, not just being you know the homeowners, but also the subcontractors, the main contractors, the designers, we all want to be proud of it.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, I want to be proud of our buildings in 30, 50 years, right?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be the problem.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when we start to think about how you unpick a supply chain where everybody's already proud of what they do, you've got to be really delicate.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I've been talking to lots of single-family house builders recently, and SME house builders in particular.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I can't go in there and say, well, you know, you've been building crap.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: And lots of them haven't.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: They've been building fine houses, that's why they sell, but they're not building houses that we want for the future.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's about getting them on a trajectory and getting them forward.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's difficult when we look at the net zero carbon building standard, it's pretty binary.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: You achieve what you don't achieve it, and that's really important.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: We have that clarity.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, for us, it's actually saying we want you to be on that trajectory towards it, and we'll help you do that.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's what we need to be.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: We need to be more collaborative across the industry to really fix these things, and it's for everybody, yeah.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're falling short.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Collaboration?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Collaboration, yeah.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: We don't talk, we all sit in our little things, we all go, I don't want to do that, it's risky and dangerous.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: No, share it.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, what does built to perform mean in a context of uh you know regenerative strategies in commercial real estate?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think what's really interesting is when we talk about performance, it's it uh it feels quite a sort of specific word, but it's so vague.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it actually said, okay, well, what is performance?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where you know I'm measuring impact.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: So actually, performance is the impact I want to achieve through our buildings, and that could be EUIs or embodied carbon, it could be urban greening factor or BNG, it could be daylight levels, but it could also be um leasing rates, or it could be rates of return, or it could be exit liquidity.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, the important bit is not necessarily are your buildings perform, but understanding what performance looks like when you get there, and that's the essential thing because you'll never know you get there if you don't know what you're measuring.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, what's the one major change um you'd like to see happen in the commercial real estate industry?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would really like them to revisit how they assess uh valuations for things that are beyond grade A officers.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's a bit of a gap where if you're a grade A office, they can value it, but if you're the next level up, I don't think they can do it.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think actually that valuation of innovation is the exciting thing.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how you do it, I've got no answers, but that's what I'd love the real estate industry to do.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for coming on Built to Perform.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks, James, it's been great, really fun chat.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Really interesting.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think um our viewers will have got quite a lot of value out of that.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for coming on and giving us your time.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks, James.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me on.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.