The SIOR Europe Chapter AGM will take place virtually on Zoom at 4pm BST and 5pm CEST on Thursday, 28th Septemer 2023.
Registration is necessary. Please email admin@sioreurope.com for further details.
The formal part of the meeting will be immediately followed by a fireside chat with incoming SIOR Global President David Lockwood SIOR and our very own Chapter Administrator Liana Toumazou. Please stay with us online following the adjournement of the meeting.
SIOR Europe supported CUBE initiative shows UK office market could be saving 3 million tonnes of carbon annually.
SIOR Europe pledged its support to CUBE over a year ago as it entered the UK office market for the first time. Well established in France, it is the first major initiative to use gamification to tackle energy wastage in commercial buildings and improve landlord and occupier engagement to deliver results. We pledged our support, endorsing it and helping to spread the word.
It announced its first year results in an award ceremony last night. Here are the highlights:
Using an innovative approach to bring landlords, building managers and occupiers together, CUBE has mobilised participants to reduce energy consumption through changing behaviour – the logical first step to net zero. The inaugural year of the competition featured 30 participating buildings, ranging from grade II listed buildings to iconic skyscrapers like the “Walkie-Talkie” and the “Cheesegrater”. At its awards ceremony, hosted in partnership with Nuveen Real Estate and BNP Paribas Real Estate at 70 St Mary’s Axe, it unveiled impressive total savings.
Applying these savings to the circa 860 million sq ft of office space across England, for example, the UK, a staggering £3.8bn a year in energy costs could be saved, not to mention nearly 3 million tonnes in carbon reduction.
At the event, awards were given for buildings in the Historical data category, where they were challenged to compete against their own past energy consumption. The winning building at 40 Holborn Viaduct, owned by Nuveen and managed by BNP Paribas Real Estate slashed 38.8% of its energy. The iconic 20 Fenchurch Street owned by H Properties and managed by Savills snagged second place ,while XLB’s The Tootal Buildings managed by Ashdown Phillips came in third place.
Awards were also given in the AV league, which focuses on newly built or refurbished buildings, and which looks at absolute value, whereby building are given an absolute energy budget based on UK Green Building Council Office Energy Intensity Targets. The Frames owned by Workspace came out top, followed by RO's GNR8 and The Howard de Walden's Estate’s head office at 23 Queen Anne Street.
With the first year of the competition concluding, the results produced some interesting findings. The expectation was that large buildings would do significantly better, but medium-sized buildings stole the spotlight saving 18% annually, compared to 12% for large sized buildings.
Another surprising result was the BREEAM-certified buildings still had a large capacity for energy savings, with a substantial average energy saving of 22%. In all, the average energy intensity of CUBE buildings before the competition was 262 kWh/m², but after the competition, this reduced considerably to 215 kWh/m². While significant, buildings across the UK will need to continue their efforts to meet UK Green Building Office Intensity Targets of 90 kWh/m2 by 2030.
Finally, CUBE can reveal that buildings in Manchester achieved outstanding energy savings, with an average of around 20%. One Victorian building in Manchester stands out by making a significant contribution to these impressive savings, highlighting the potential for energy-efficient transformations even in Grade II listed buildings.
Further key stats:
Matthew Leguen de Lacroix, Head of Business Development EMEA, said: “We knew how successful CUBE had been in France and so when we were asked to endorse a UK version of the competition, we didn’t hesitate. SIOR is all about promoting best practice and driving the real estate sector to perform at the highest levels. We’re delighted to see such brilliant results in just 12 months and hope this galvanises more landlords and occupiers to get involved in season two.”
Mark Bruno, Chief Ambassador of CUBE, said: “Real estate contributes a disproportionate percentage of worldwide carbon emissions, but despite the industry’s best efforts, the latest Savills research still indicated that 39% of global carbon emissions still come from the sector, with operational emissions alone accounting for 28%. Our goal was to galvanise the industry into taking stronger action, using the tried and tested tool of gamification. By encouraging participants to adopt the spirit of competition, they strive to reduce the carbon footprint of their commercial buildings, while also coming together to share experiences and successes. The competition’s first year has delivered some impressive results, and we’re delighted that so many big names from across the real estate world jumped at the opportunity.”
The second season of CUBE is already in process with an ambition to show the collective impact of 100 buildings, old, new, refurbished or listed across the UK. If you think your workplace or that of someone you know should take part, get in touch with the CUBE team.
You are invited to the last European Chapter’s Mind Your Own Business event of 2023 in Italy at Hotel The Square which is situated in the heart of the City of Milan.
Mind Your Own Business events have become the flagship of European SIOR business generation meetings and are open for members only.
We welcome partners and guests to the leisure and optional activities.
Thursday, 14th September 2023, 8h45 CET to Friday 15th September 2023 12h00 CET.
Leisure optional programme for the weekend for members and guests.
The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) attended MIPIM in force with its international and European leadership all present to meet with its global membership and address the local and international issues that affect its 3,700 members in 45 countries.
In fact, with over 50 representatives present in Cannes this year, it was a record number of SIOR members and guests at the conference, and the organisation’s stand served as a great base camp for members, their clients and contacts to meet and do business.
For the SIOR leadership, there were two key trends on the agenda, as SIOR executive vice-president Patricia Loveall explained: “Industrial is up; office is down. The depressed office market is a direct result of the COVID pandemic and at this point the status quo is not an option. There is going to be a new look and feel in the office sector as the issues facing the industry represent a challenge to our members and our task is to provide them with support. That element of the industry needs to be reimagined.”
Meanwhile, the society’s CEO, Robert Thornburgh, highlighted reasons to remain optimistic “Building, design, everything is changing and those who are nimble and accept the challenges will be the winners. Our job is to educate, collaborate and assist our members over the next five or even 10 years to work through these issues and see them emerge stronger.
“On the industrial side, the disruption of supply chains is creating new opportunities, with limitations on imports benefiting local manufacturers. We’re seeing double-digit growth in 2023, and we don’t see the market changing for industrial.”
Finally, SIOR’s European Chapter President, Andrew Smith, added: “There are positive signs that recovering demand is bringing back industrial appreciation – certainly there appears to be competition again – and the occupier market has remained resilient, with many standout companies driving demand for land.”
For SIOR, MIPIM remains an essential meeting place for its members to make new connections and broaden their reach, and Robert Thornburgh highlighted that “There’s nowhere else that brings together such a wide variety of people, companies and countries.”
While there was a lot of uncertainty ahead of MIPIM in the UK, fuelled by doomsday talk of recession, Andrew Smith was keen to point out that in reality; “Judging from the noises on the ground, it seems that the UK economy has proved more robust than many people feared. There’s still a bit of nervousness around US interest rates, and concerns that these could keep rising until the end of the year, however it looks like UK interest rates may be peaking and the industry has perhaps weathered the worst of the storm. And while it’s difficult to generalise the pan European market, it’s largely been spared the same corrections as the UK market, which has taken a big hit in the last 9 months. With all that said, there are positive signs that recovering demand is bringing back industrial appreciation (certainly there appears competition again), and the occupier market has remained resilient, with many standout companies driving demand for land.”
Other trends of note to emerge from MIPIM were on the sustainability side, as external geo-political and macro-economic pressures over the last year has seen a massive rise in the number of businesses interested in transitioning towards low carbon solutions, as well as significantly ramping up of renewable energy sources, with commitments to phase down fossil fuel reliance really making a difference. This newfound urgency has translated into a dramatic focus in financing.
For SIOR, MIPIM has been a really good opportunity to bring together the leadership of the group from both the US and Europe, to congregate with far-flung colleagues and network. SIOR is at its heart a network of like-minded people, so the conference is a natural stage for members to make new connections and broaden the organisations reach.
The Real Estate Data Foundation is a not-for-profit initiative bringing together the whole sector around the topic of data and to raise data ethics up the agenda and we are delighted that SIOR Europe is supporting this collaborative alliance.
But what is 'data ethics', why should you care and what should you do about it?
Ethics is important in all corners of real estate, but as the volume of data that we collect and use grows, it is important to make sure that we apply ethical thinking to this. Having the technology to collect data and being allowed to under law is not enough - we need to consider whether we should be collecting and using the data. Ethics is all about asking 'should we?' If buildings of the future are about the user's happiness, health or productivity we can collect huge amounts of data on all of this - but should we? Where does the risk outweigh the benefit?
Before COVID, the idea of having your temperature taken to assess your health to be allowed to enter a building seemed inconceivable, yet for a while it became the norm. At what point should we stop collecting and using this data?
A more extreme example may be the decision about placing cameras inside buildings. This can allow all sorts of data to be collected and used to improve the experience for the resident, but there is a high risk that residents will resist it – and complain about it, as happened recently when North Ayrshire Council used Facial Recognition Technology in its school canteens. But what if the cameras are used to assist the elderly to continue living on their own by providing an automatic alert system for any falls or health problems? As long as data was suitably anonymised and secure and residents were fully aware of what was being collected and why, then this may feel like a more acceptable use case.
Whatever your views on the examples above, we can see that the ethical use of data is not black and white which is why the real estate sector needs to be on the front foot.
Data ethics in real estate matters for 3 reasons:
The ethical use of data is complex and subjective, but the good news is that it is easy to take significant steps towards making sure that you are using data in an ethical way. The RED Foundation has developed 6 data ethical principles that we ask both people and companies to sign up to. Sign up to these today and build them into any decisions you make relating to data and you are well on the road to addressing it.
For those who wish to take a step further, we have published a Data Ethics Playbook which builds on these principles and provides practical guidance on how to build data ethics into your thinking.
Written on behalf of the RED Foundation by:
FOREWORD BY THE EUROPEAN CHAPTER PRESIDENT, ANDREW SMITH SIOR FRICS.
As COP27 has drawn to a close, SIOR Europe is keen to join the conversation about the focus that the summit brings on climate change impact to share commentary and advice from our members, all of whom support greater action in the race to net zero.
Our members have put climate change impact at the heart of their consultancy in response to the market and clients’ increasing ESG requirements and have embedded it into every stage of the property process.
SIOR Europe is pleased to invite you to an exclusive event in London, England on Thursday, 8th December 2022, from 10.15 am to 3.00 pm.
Members and guests will be treated to a private tour (with an expert guide) of the Churchill War Rooms in the heart of Westminster. Walk the top-secret corridors of Churchill War Rooms and glimpse what life would have been like during the tense days and nights of the Second World War.
Housing the underground nerve centre where the British government directed the Second World War and the award-winning Churchill Museum, Churchill War Rooms is one of London’s must-see attractions.
The event is kindly sponsored by Ashford Developments.
Following the morning visit, we will then make our way to The In and Out Naval & Military Club (N° 4, St James's Square, London SW1Y 4JU) for drinks, preceding lunch.
During the private dining room experience over lunch, our guest speaker, Bill Blain, author of The Morning Porridge., will share some of his thoughts, charm and charisma.
There will be time to relax, network and develop business opportunities with SIOR colleagues and guests.
PLACES WILL BE LIMITED.
If you would like to invite a colleague in the industry that is interested in SIOR membership, in keeping with our strategy to grow the European membership of designees, member associates and company affiliates, please contact events@sioreurope.com with the name, address, email and contact details of the invitee. SIOR Europe will cover the cost of each guest (free places are limited).
If you have any questions about this event, please contact events@sioreurope.com
The SIOR European Chapter committee have the pleasure of inviting you to attend our fourth business generation and best-practice event, over one and a half days, including an informal networking apéro and dinner. Thursday, 30th March 2023, 8h30 CET to Friday 31st March 2023 12h30 CET.
The event is free of charge but open only to SIOR members. Sponsorship is sought if you would like to get involved.
Mind Your Own Business – a one & a half day conference for members to be held in Berlin, Germany.
Wednesday, March 29th 2023:
Thursday, March 30th 2023:
Friday, March 31st 2023
MIPIM - The World's Leading Property Market
14-17 March 2023 - Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France
MIPIM brings together the most influential players from all international property sectors, offering unrivalled access to the greatest number of development projects and sources of capital worldwide. This unique environment provides exceptional networking, showcasing and commercial opportunities for property advisors, developers, regional authorities, investors and corporate end-users.
SIOR’s Global leadership attending MIPIM 2023 :
Patricia J. Loveall, SIOR, President.
Paul Danks SIOR FRICS, Member, Board of Directors.
Andy Smith SIOR FRICS, European Chapter President.
They will be supported by SIOR team members from HQ:-
Robert Thornburgh, SIOR, FRICS. Chief Executive Officer.
Brandon Hensley, Chief Operating Officer.
John Manganiello, Senior Vice President of Business Development.
Kelly Miller, CAE, Vice President, Member Experience.
Matthew Leguen de Lacroix, SIOR, FRICS, Head of Business Development EMEA.
SIOR members may benefit from SIOR's delegate stand rate.
Contact events@sioreurope.com for further details or to find out more about adhering to SIOR.
