Sustainable Development - Barriers to Change in the UK Property Market

Environmental considerations are now influencing many aspects of the design, development and management of commercial buildings in the UK in terms of location and transport-related issues, site-specific environmental impact assessment, choice of building materials, energy use, purchasing policy, maintenance, indoor air quality and user health and comfort. There are, currently, some 280 commercial buildings in the UK which, according to most definitions of the term, could be considered to be 'green'. Whilst the introduction of a green approach to the design of UK residential property has been slow compared to many other European countries the percentage of developers and owner-occupier client organisations procuring green commercial buildings in the UK in both the public and private sector has grown steadily since the early 1990s. Indeed, many UK Government agencies and international corporations now include green buildings as part of their property portfolios and green issues are beginning to influence the thinking of both property investors and developers. However, the UK Government has felt for some time that the extent to which the property industry has been prepared to adopt more 'sustainable' practices could have been greater. As a result, it has recently commissioned a number of research projects to explore the reasons behind this apparent resistance to change and to examine ways in which UK commercial property might further reduce its many environmental impacts. This discussion paper sets out to examine a number of the factors which may explain this apparent reluctance to embrace a greener approach to property. In the first part of this paper, a number of generic barriers to change are identified and the conditions needed to both promote and facilitate change are discussed - financial incentive, creating 'protected time' in order that organisations may accommodate change and the benefits and pitfalls of greater requirement for legal compliance. The second part of this paper sets out proposals for a new UK based study, to be carried out by the Centre for Real Estate Management at Oxford Brookes in collaboration with the Department of Transport and the Regions (DETR) and the Building Research Establishment (BRE). This section of the paper will draw upon data gathered in a recently published study carried out at Oxford Brookes into the benefits of green commercial property development. This research identified and examined some of the benefits identified by building owners and occupiers in adopting a more environmentally responsible approach to property, whilst at the same time highlighting both technical and attitudinal obstacles to more widespread uptake of the green approach to commercial property investment, design and management.