What more could you do to improve the sustainability of your project?

Achieving compliance with local policy is often not enough to appease planners, now more than ever they are requesting developers to go above and beyond in terms of sustainability. We have outlined some ambitious but achievable ways that demonstrate exemplary building performance to local authorities:

• WELL assessment – Incorporating a WELL strategy on both residential and commercial buildings will assist with enhanced health and well being for occupants, improved staff productivity and reduced sick days for staff whilst also having a higher rental value, which in turn positively impacts a business’s bottom line.
• BREEAM Excellent or Outstanding – Committing to a BREEAM rating on commercial buildings that exceeds the one noted in policy is a tangible way to demonstrate your commitment to sustainability.
• Embodied carbon – Meeting the GLA aspirational Whole Life Carbon targets, which are almost half standard practice. Whilst requiring new ways of designing and constructing buildings this issue will be increasingly considered as operational performance is already achieving zero carbon.
• Export heat – Proactively building an energy centre and heat network that exports heat to nearby buildings/ developments.
• Energy storage – The energy strategy could include detail of energy storage systems such as in-home batteries of PV-to-hot water cylinder. These enable developments to store or use electricity or heat at a time which is most beneficial, both in terms of CO₂ and cost.
• Post Occupancy Evaluation – An early stage commitment to gather occupant satisfaction feedback and quantitative data from post occupancy monitoring will allow solutions to be developed that ensure the optimisation of environmental design for high quality, comfortable dwellings.