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The Investment Property Databank will this week launch an environment code aimed at helping commercial property improve its sustainability performance.

The code aims to help occupiers and property managers measure efficiency in areas such as energy consumption, carbon emissions, water consumption and waste processing. The idea is that once occupiers and managers have a standardised way of measuring performance in these areas, they can begin to improve it.

It is hoped this will help to reduce the amount of carbon produced by commercial property, which makes up 20% of global levels. The code has been endorsed by the Confederation of British Industry and is being backed by Barclays, BP, CB Richard Ellis and Bureau Veritas. It will be formally launched at London’s City Hall on tomorrow evening.

EPCs are a turnoff

"This is a seismic change in how the property industry attacks climate change," said Christopher Hedley, director of IPD Occupiers, the corporate real estate division of IPD. "If companies don’t know how they are performing, they don’t know how they can improve. Things like DECs [display energy certificates] and energy performance certificates are so complicated they are a turnoff. We want to create a measurement framework simple enough so that companies can take it to the management and say, 'This is how we need to improve'."

Companies can sign up to the code voluntarily. Hedley said the Office of Government Commerce, the Treasury division that co-ordinates the government’s estate, has expressed an interest in signing up to the code. The office oversees 160m sq ft of space across the country.

Things like DECs [display energy certificates] and energy performance certificates are so complicated they are a turnoff. We want to create a measurement framework simple enough so that companies can take it to the management and say, 'This is how we need to improve'.

Christopher Hedley, director of IPD Occupiers

He said there has also been strong interest from universities and colleges that are signed up with IPD Occupiers and which occupy 430m sq ft across the UK, and from private companies signed up to the IPD International Total Occupancy Cost Code, which occupy 270m sq ft.

Landlord and tenant tension

Hedley also said the code could go some way towards easing the inherent tensions between landlords and occupiers over how to bear the cost of improving the environmental performance of existing buildings.

"This will be a great opportunity for both sides to come together and discuss how buildings can be improved," he said. He added that improving environmental performance would not be sacrificed because of the global economic slowdown.

"You have to say it’s possible, but I think the steps that have been made during the last few years will endure," he said. "Also, in the long run I think environmentally responsible buildings will have a rental premium."