Thoughts

3 min read

Chris recaps Planet Mark for Properties Launch

Thoughts

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    EVORA

Last week I attended Planet First’s launch of the Planet Mark for Properties. The Planet Mark is a sustainability certification for organisations demonstrating commitment to continuous environmental improvement and this event saw the launch of their property certification, hosted by the building futures group.

Planet First, who have partnered with the Eden Project, focus on employee engagement and behavioural change in organisations to deliver environmental improvement, and the Planet Mark for Properties follows the same approach.

As Steve Malkin, CEO, puts it, identifying the right sustainability champions in buildings, whether they are single or multi let properties, unlocks the potential to make things happen.

Planet First provides the tool kits and workshops so staff have the necessary skills and awareness to make a difference in their own properties enabling them to work towards getting the certification.

Steve was clear on the business benefits – enhancing the brand credentials of your properties whilst making them a better place to work.

Sarah Beattie, Senior Environmental Manager at Land Securities has test driven the Planet Mark for Properties in some of their offices. Speaking at the event, she considered the only way to achieve whole building sustainability improvement in multi let properties was through tenant engagement and positive collaboration. Although this can be a challenge, especially where some tenants can be reluctant to get involved, she was very positive and said “The Planet Mark brings it all to life”. Land Securities now intend to certify many of their properties over a 5 year programme.

Simon Cox, UK Sustainability Officer at Prologis said “The Planet Mark is the tool that best reaches out to the occupier…. getting landlords and tenants to work together is how we make big impacts.”

Lord Redesdale, the CEO of the Energy Managers Association (EMA), also spoke and expressed his concern that energy was a potential major financial risk due to limited national grid capacity. His answer was simple– to reduce demand through energy efficiency.

He was very supportive of ESOS, the latest government regulation, requiring many organisations in the UK to conduct energy assessments by the end of the year (EVORA have partnered with Planet First to deliver this). He was clear that only by being aware of the opportunities to reduce energy will effective measures be taken – a key one being behavioural change.

Planet First offer a persuasive argument and an interesting product in the Planet Mark for Properties to achieve positive employee and tenant engagement, which delivers enhanced environmental building performance.

 

Chris Bennett

Managing Director