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Are Net Zero Developments the Future of Real Estate? with Sally Jones and Matt Webster

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Sep 27, 2022

In the fourth episode of season
10 of the Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by


Sally Jones
, Head of
Strategy, Digital and Technology at
British Land and Matt Webster, Head of Environmental Sustainability
at
British Land. They share British Land’s strategy for
sustainable developments and how they are going to achieve net zero
by 2030.

Sally shares how her role at
British Land has changed since 2010 and shifted her focus towards
strategy and technology. Matt talks about how their most recent
sustainable projects, 100 Liverpool Street and Canada Water, have
been designed to reduce both operational and embodied carbon in
both the development and the running of the buildings.

Sally and Matt discuss the
advancement of technologies and successful utilisation of data and
what this means for the future of sustainable real
estate.


Resources:


Companies Mentioned:


Shout Outs:


Key Insights From This Episode:  

  • I think the next few years will be challenging,
    but the more business that successfully deliver their strategies,
    the closer we will be to net zero – Louisa
  • Technology is changing the shape of the
    property industry – Sally
  • I’m confident as a sector that we’ve got the
    technologies, skill sets and the ambition to play our part in this,
    to come together and deliver – Matt
  • The digitalisation of real estate will have a
    significant part to play in the decarbonisation of the built
    environment – Matt
  • We have to figure out a cheaper way of
    delivering digital transformation, especially with the rising
    energy costs – Sally

 


About Our Guests:

Sally Jones, Head of Strategy, Digital and
Technology:

Sally joined British Land in
February 2010 as Head of Investor Relations and took responsibility
for Strategy alongside Investor Relations in January 2015. In May
2016, she was appointed Head of Strategy and Investments.
Subsequently, she has expanded her role to include data and
insights and the Group’s Smart technology initiatives. She joined
the Executive Committee in 2015.

Sally is also a Non-executive
Director of Equiem, the leading tenant experience digital platform
provider.

 

Previous Experience:

Before joining British Land
Sally worked at Cadbury Schweppes where she held a variety of roles
over ten years including Director of Investor Relations, Director
of Communications and Finance Director Group Sales and Marketing.
Prior to that she worked in the City.

 

Matt Webster, Head of Environmental
Sustainability  

As Head of Environmental
Sustainability, Matt leads the environmental performance of British
Land’s standing portfolio and development pipeline, responsible for
implementing our pathway to net zero carbon by 2030 and wider
environmental sustainability agenda. Matt works across the business
to ensure our assets are designed, built and operated to the
highest environmental standards. Matt led British Land to a 55%
reduction in its operational energy intensity achieved in 2019. He
has held various roles across the business, including establishing
our approach to wellbeing and most recently developing and
implementing our approach to smart buildings and digital
placemaking. Recent development projects include the delivery of
British Land’s first net zero development at 100 Liverpool Street
and leading sustainability at Canada Water – a 53 acre mixed use
regeneration project.

Prior to joining British Land,
Matt held various sustainability consulting and banking roles. Matt
has a Master’s degree from Forum for the Future.

 

About British Land:
Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial
property is focused on London Campuses and Retail & Fulfilment
assets throughout the UK. We own or manage a portfolio valued at
£14.3bn (British Land share: £10.5bn) as at 31 March 2022 making us
one of Europe’s largest listed real estate investment
companies. 

 

We create Places People Prefer,
delivering the best, most sustainable places for our customers and
communities. Our strategy is to leverage our best in class platform
and proven expertise in development, repositioning and active
management, investing behind two key themes: Campuses and Retail &
Fulfilment. 

 

Our three Campuses at Broadgate,
Paddington Central and Regent’s Place are dynamic neighbourhoods,
attracting growth customers and sectors, and offering some of the
best connected, highest quality and most sustainable space in
London. We are delivering our fourth Campus at Canada Water, where
we have planning consent to deliver 5m sq ft of residential,
commercial, retail and community space over 53 acres. Our Campuses
account for 67% of our portfolio. 

 

Retail & Fulfilment accounts for
33% of the portfolio and is focused on retail parks which are
aligned to the growth of convenience, online and last mile
fulfilment. We are complementing this with urban logistics
primarily in London, focused on development-led
opportunities. 

 

Sustainability is embedded
throughout our business. In 2020, we set out our sustainability
strategy which focuses on two time-critical areas where British
Land can create the most benefit: making our whole portfolio net
zero carbon by 2030, and partnering to grow social value and
wellbeing in the communities where we operate. 

 

Further details can be found on
the British Land website at
www.britishland.com

 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly
become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and
search consultancy with operations across North America, United
Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is
so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast


‘The Propcast’
where she
hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join
her in conversation about innovation.


About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in
Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was
to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to
the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart
Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed
at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and
clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking
exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK,
Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

 

Timestamps:

[2:10] Sally: How did you get
into your strategy, technology and digital role?

  •  It has been so fascinating to be able to
    combine strategy with all things digital and technology and I am
    now in charge of building tech, insights and the whole technology
    stack.
  • My interest in technology started when I
    realised how technology was changing the shape of the property
    industry.

[3:50] Matt: Could you tell us
what your role at British Land entails?

  • I have been at British Land for a number of
    years now and worked in different sections around the business, but
    always with an angle on sustainability.
  • I was retained to deliver the 55% energy target
    and we were very proud to be able to deliver that over a 10 year
    period from 2009 to 2019.
  • We were early adopters of the idea that it was
    our responsibility to collaborate with customers to work towards
    understanding our carbon footprint and start utilising data and
    technologies.

[5:35] Sally: Could you
elaborate on your digital strategy?

  • We started working on it in 2015 and created a
    smart team after realising that digitalising buildings was going to
    become a big thing.
  • We wanted to create a strategy with a very
    focused approach on improving people’s experience of our real
    estate, building greater understanding through data and driving
    greater efficiency.

[6:58] Matt: How does the
sustainability strategy fit into the digital strategy?

  • Our latest strategy runs from 2019 to 2030 and
    is balanced between environmental and social issues.
  • Our target is to reach net zero carbon by 2030,
    as an operator and developer of space our two big sources of carbon
    are embodied from the development of our assets and operational
    which is related to the energy from running our assets.
  • We are aiming for a 50% reduction in our
    embodied carbon and a 75% reduction in our operational carbon. The
    digital plan will help us deliver these ambitious
    targets.

[8:45] Matt: Tell us about your
current development projects and how they’re helping socially and
environmentally?

  • 100 Liverpool Street is our first net zero
    development, it has benefited from significant reuse of the
    previous structure of the building and we worked really hard to
    design without carbon throughout the process. A lot of thought has
    gone into how it is going to operate once it’s a live building.
    It’s our first building to deliver some of the things in our
    digital strategy as well. 
  • Canada Water is a really exciting project that
    we are embedding sustainability principles into. The building is
    implementing our smart building design guide which will help the
    building run more efficiently by retrieving useful data out of it
    during the design stage.

[12:35] Sally: What technologies
are working for British Land and how are you utilising
them?

  • Smart enabling a building makes it digitally
    capable, the key for that is to allow us to get data out of the
    building in such a way that we can surface it through a single
    platform.
  • The data allows us to see what is working and
    manage the building more efficiently over time. Machine learning
    and AI helps us control the building to drive more
    efficiencies.
  • We’re working with a company called Facilio,
    they have built this entire data platform for us which things like
    AI can sit on. The Equiem platform works alongside Facilio to see
    how and when rooms in buildings are being used.

[16:08] Matt: Is there anything
you would like to add to the data side of smart
buildings?

  • We have learnt a lot in the development and
    delivery of 100 Liverpool Street. Installing smart metre systems
    lets us know exactly where and when energy is consumed in a
    building. The system will also communicate the data to a wider
    platform, allowing us to take a software approach to the
    building. 
  • With this data we can apply it at a portfolio
    level rather than replicating it within each building.

[19:29] Sally: What do we need
to tackle in the future?

  • We are now turning our attention to our old
    developments, ultimately we’re all going to have to think about
    retrofitting our old buildings. 
  • We have to figure out a way of delivering this
    digital transformation much more cheaply, especially with the
    rising energy costs.

[22:15] Matt: What lies ahead in
terms of environmental sustainability?

  • People are finally listening to this issue and
    it is really important to make sure we’ve got the resources and
    skill sets to respond to it.
  • We have been tackling operational carbon for a
    long time, we need more understanding and data surrounding embodied
    carbon so we have a more rapid process to help reduce it in the
    next few years.

 

L – Touch on
the main 
lessons you have learnt throughout your
career.

Sally: What stands out for me at
companies that I have worked for is the culture value and
leadership. British Land and Cadbury are the two places where I
have enjoyed and achieved the most.

M – Please give
a
 mention to anyone / product / service.

Matt: Our own internal digital
placemaking team, they have been working really hard working on the
vision and delivering 100 Liverpool Street.

R – What has
been the most  
rewarding  aspect of working within the digitalisation
space?

Sally: Working with this small
team at British Land, they’ve been brilliant at navigating their
way through a very complex landscape in a cost effective way with
an incredible set of products.

E – What are
you 
excited about in the future of environmental
sustainability?

Matt: I’m excited about the
recognition that ESG is now gaining and the seriousness that people
are starting to approach the subject with. Also, the digitalisation
of real estate because that will have a significant part to play in
the decarbonisation of the built environment. 

 

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