Sue Churchill, Director of Nottingham-based architecture firm Church Lukas discusses the challenges facing the PBSA sector when it comes to sustainable buildings.
GSL News: You have long been a champion for sustainability in PBSA. Does the PBSA sector still grapple with sustainability issues in the way it did previously? Or is sustainability very much part of routine business these days?
It’s definitely not at the top of the agenda for a lot of the smaller players, but the industry leaders are now really making it a huge part of their businesses,
If we look at what some of the big players are doing, UPP is now developing Passivhaus Projects, as are Urbanest. There is a massive amount of work that’s been done through that initiative – it’s no longer just small-scale test projects. Passivhaus is a solution that is perfect for the sector because it deals with so many of the unintended consequences that will arise from people designing what they think are high-performing buildings but not really understanding building physics.
We have already seen examples where people have built highly insulated buildings but forgotten the ventilation. That has two potential impacts. One is overheating, and the second one is the potential for mould growth issues and the quality of surrounding indoor air. If you’ve got what is called cold bridges and it’s not being done properly, you have such extremes of temperature between the parts that are performing well and the parts that are performing poorly, then it collects mould and condensation and all kinds of things and is effectively is a time bomb waiting to happen. So, we are going through a period of unintended consequences. We are designing better-performing buildings in theory, but in many cases, if the construction and detailing don’t follow the stringent requirements, we may actually end up with worse-performing buildings. As an example, Passivhaus is an off-the-shelf solution that controls everything. It is a solution that we can follow, and we know it’s going to work. However, the problem we have is that success is dependent on the people who are delivering the accommodation solutions. There are only so many contractors in the supply chain that are actually able to successfully build buildings with higher levels of air-tightness.
We all know what happens when it comes to the end of the construction programme – the completion date can’t change. You can understand why people are reluctant to go down a route that is more challenging. Passivhaus is a much better route, but it does have challenges associated with it in terms of the overall procurement process and supply chain. People need to start earlier, but they never do. There are always delays in planning. This is not the fault of investors or developers. That is just how the world is at the moment.
The other sustainability challenge, particularly for developers who are less experienced, is that there continues to be an automatic thought that sustainable features are going to cost more. Yet, they don’t have to cost more if sustainability issues are considered properly and at the right time. It really takes strong client leadership to protect sustainability. The consultants generally know what to do. However, unless the client protects the principle of sustainability throughout the entire planning and construction process, sustainability considerations are at risk because contractor supply chains are often not yet mobilized in a way that supports sustainability.
A perfect example of the challenges we face in this area is the paint in student rooms. Paint is the last thing that goes on the walls, and sometimes, it is almost wet when the students are moving in because it’s always done at the last minute. We paint what basically amounts to liquid plastic on the walls, which are packed full of chemicals, and then we put students in their rooms, and we make them breathe it in. This happens when there are perfectly good alternatives, which last as long, have zero Volatile Organic Components and actually absorb carbon when they’re drying. And yet we still put the nasty stuff that is harmful to health on the walls, and which eventually ends up back inside us at some point – through microplastics ending up in the food chain. It’s scary stuff.
The reason that safe alternatives are not adopted on every single student scheme in the country is partly because of contractors’ retrospective rebates which are needed to allow contractors to prop up their margins. So, when you try to put a specification forward which is the best specification for people and planet, and in supply costs is only a very small percentage uplift in costs (single figure percentages), if the contractor doesn’t have a supply chain agreement with that supplier, they don’t have the same access to financial incentives, so they will use their supplier instead. Nine times out of ten, the client won’t know the difference. There are definitely opportunities to improve supply chain transparency and pricing and change these types of entrenched practices. The solution again will require people in the industry to demonstrate they can do things differently, publish it and then influence others to do the same.
GSL News: This issue of needing to do things differently and share the outcomes feels similar to the early days of green buildings when a lot of work was done to build the business case for green buildings and prove that there could be a return on investment from doing things differently.
This issue is similar. The green premium and the brown discount discussion is a massive one, and I think it’s starting to happen in the commercial world and, to a certain extent, some of the residential side of the industry. From what we’ve seen, it doesn’t yet exist in the PBSA sector, though it should do because the RICS have changed how their members need to value buildings. The challenge is that the valuation process relies on case evidence to support the valuation, and none exists yet. How do you change if it’s based on precedent and there is no precedent?
To begin to effect change, we need key senior decision-makers within the industry to collaborate and challenge how we will be valuing things going forward. It can’t be a closed shop. We need a collaborative approach to say no, this is an important issue, and this is how we are going to approach it going forward. Can we change the yield? Are there any quick fixes? We need to get to a place where there are no barriers to creating sustainable assets – and quickly. Some of it will come down to the lower cost of fuel, but of course, that depends on who the resident is at the time and whether they are going to leave the heating on. It’s not just about the capital side of things then.
We also need to be mindful of some of the marketing products that are produced within the industry and have an influence, for example, the last HomeViews report. It is not related to students but has implications for the build-to-rent and co-living sectors. That report shows a downward trend in residents’ interest in sustainable features. The difference was not massive – only a one percentage difference between the two years, but it was down three consecutive years. I would have thought that with everything happening in the sustainability space that interest would be trending upward.
GSL News: Do you think the downward trend in the priority placed on sustainability features reflects that people are feeling the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, and many perceive that sustainability features cost significantly more?
You never quite know what question was asked in the surveys that these reports are based on, and often we don’t see the data at the end of it. I think one of the dangers is that if those results were picked up again by an investor, they would say, ‘My customer doesn’t want that’. In fact, the customer probably did not quite say that.
I think change will happen faster when lower-performing buildings are valued at a discount, and this will scare people into realizing that they need to do better in terms of the assets they are creating. There is a tool called the CRREM tool that looks at the risk associated with stranded assets. The CRREM tool assesses the performance of a building and then says, based on this level of energy performance, this building has a lifespan of, let’s say, 15 years before it becomes stranded based on mandated carbon reduction targets. I have seen CRREM applied in the commercial world, but I’ve not seen it applied in the PBSA world.
There are other things that we can do as an industry, and I think the supply chain is starting to respond. For example, when it comes to fit-out, the automatic thing is to buy new furniture. There is so much secondhand furniture out there, and the whole re-loved approach is becoming more popular. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily want everything to be brand new. I think there is something lovely about collecting things along the way and repurposing things. I’m hoping that some of those circular economy opportunities will come into play in the PBSA sector.
The PBSA sector has a massive advantage in that it can make small changes and multiply them. There are loads of things that can be done, and then the multiplier effect of what might be one small individual change can be quite substantial if applied across the industry. There is a lot that we can do by being smart and focused without significant expense.
GSL News: Do you think everybody can win? Can we have buildings that are sustainable, affordable for students and profitable for investors?
Yes, but not by continuing to do what we are doing. It will take more than a little tweak. We have to get back to the pie chart of the constituent parts that make up the weekly rent and get everybody to commit to doing their bit to identify the changes needed to make it happen.
There are many interest groups that want to come together and solve things, but the people who make the ultimate decisions are often not around the table when solutions are being discussed. We need decision-makers to be part of finding solutions because they often hold a lot of the information that is required to develop innovative solutions. Until we can get them around the table and openly share some of their trade secrets, we will be looking for solutions in the wrong place.
The whole model at the moment is in such a state of tension that there is a danger it’s going to break. We need to stop working in silos and be open and transparent and be prepared to find some alternative solutions. When I started in the sector, Clive Crawford was working with Jarvis to create a different solution for the market. The reason that Jarvis were successful is that the client was driving that work – and because they were invested in what they were doing. They were going to get the benefit of the thinking that then they put into it. We need this level of deep thinking to come up with the right solutions going forward
But if it is just people having a natter about something… I mean, I love talking about this sort of stuff, but how do we move it into action?
