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The BCO's new report, 'Viability and Sustainability in the Regions', reveals that while London and the Big Six regional cities - Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, Glasgow and Manchester - have a number of modern, sustainable offices available (averaging 19 highly sustainable offices per city), smaller yet economically important cities like Newcastle and Sheffield are lagging behind.
This could force organisations with ESG commitments to relocate, hindering local economic growth.
Even when adjusted for city size, the disparity was still evident, with five or six highly sustainable officers per million square metres, compared with an average of 11 in each of the Big Six. THigher EPC ratings, from A+ to B, were also twice as prevalent in the six major cities compared with regional cities.
'Strategic shift'
To combat this disparity, the BCO is recommending a move towards a 'city office portfolio' framework, in which cities would take a more holistic view of their office stock, coordinating action plans which could foster collaborative leadership.
Property developers, meanwhile, could be provided with tailored 'fit-for-place' toolkits of interventions to better respond to market conditions and prioritise strategic retrofitting and refurbishment.
These interventions should be paired, the BCO states, with a focus on valuing and measuring building performance metrics and operational efficiency to shift focus away from upfront certifications; incentivising sustainable practices; and efforts to build local capacity by investing in upskilling the regional supply chain.
The BCO said this transformation would require complex and co-ordinated action, including reforms to planning requirements, educating stakeholders and adoption by the entire sector. To achieve this, the report provides a toolkit of 21 potential pathways and interventions, including measures at the asset level such as retrofit strategies and energy efficiency improvements, as well as industry-wide practices and policy levers such as regulatory adjustments.
Currently, Britain's commercial real estate sector is set to miss 2030 goals for all non-domestic rented properties to achieve an EPC rating of B or higher, due to low energy efficiency improvement rates.
The office sector remains the worst performer, with 5,761 buildings still rated F or G and only 15% meeting the target EPC bands.
Commenting on the BCO's new report, Nick James, sustainability director at Futureground and co-author of the report, stated: "Addressing the regional disparity in highly sustainable offices is not simply an environmental imperative - it is essential to securing the long-term economic resilience and competitiveness of all UK cities."
Jaime Blakeley-Glover, head of regenerative futures at LSH and fellow co-author, added: "By adopting a collaborative, place-based approach and implementing targeted interventions, we can unlock the potential of regional office markets, foster thriving business environments and contribute to a more sustainable future for the entire nation.
"The time for decisive and co-ordinated action is now - but it demands a fundamental shift in how we perceive and collaborate within regional office markets."