Learning lessons from others

I visited the FOOTPRINT+ conference and exhibition recently in London’s Billingsgate and I have to say I was impressed.

The show bills itself as the ‘centre of excellence for carbon reduction in property’ and brings together companies that are looking at ways to decarbonise the built environment.

I’ve been to so many events now, across several different industries, and they can all seem to simply blur into others, where you’ve trapsed up and down exhibition aisles and stood at the back of the most popular seminars because they didn’t provide enough seats.

This was different, and I came away buzzing and full of positivity.
 

"What we need is one clear definition of net zero that everyone can adhere to"

- CHRIS HERBER, Product Marketing Manager

A diverse range

The venue was the old Billingsgate market, and they had a main conference space with 34 scheduled seminars. Around the edges was a ‘market’ packed out with booths all appealing to a diverse audience of investors, insurers, architects, building underwriters, developers, along with contractors, and others from the construction supply chain.

The seminars were as diverse as the audience, with a wide variety of topics from ecology to finance, but all focusing on property, construction and the built environment.

My colleague Chris Newman spoke on the first day and makes a brief appearance in the highlight reel for the Show which you can see here.

Portfolio greening through retrofit

Chris is our Zero Carbon Design Manager, and he chaired this discussion with Ben Cross, Creative Real Estate Developer, Tim Heatley, Capital & Centric, Youhna Rhee, Atelier Ten, and Suki Gilliland, Lansec

The seminar focused on the views of leading UK developers on their emerging strategies to make retrofits a desirable and viable proposition on the market.

It looked at the increasingly touch legislative environment and how this is impacting on property portfolios, potentially leading to buildings becoming stranded assets.

Despite higher complexity and less financial incentives, a few developers have proven that it is possible to make retrofit a main business model.

On the other hand, larger developers are looking at new models for portfolio-wide "greening" through energy retrofits, low-carbon extensions, operational hyper-optimisation and product transformation.

Suki Gilliland from Lansec talked a lot about HVAC and the important role heat pumps will play in the net zero retrofit challenge.

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By Christopher Herbert

Product Marketing Manager