The majority (70%) of UK commercial landlords do not have a sustainability strategy in place, revealed the latest study from InfinitSpace and Instant Group.
The research — based on a survey of 250 commercial landlords with offices in the UK conducted by Censuswide — revealed 42% of those surveyed had one or two individual sustainability strategies in place, but none overall.
With 23% admitting they were unaware if they had any in place across their portfolio and 5% said they had none in place at all.
However, 48% of survey participants recognised that having strong sustainability strategies were essential in maintaining high occupancy rates.
These figures follow on from previous research by the companies, which revealed of the landlords with above 70% occupancy rates, 56% have sustainability strategies in place — of those with less than 40% occupancy, almost half (46%) have none in place or were unaware of what they were.
Wybo Wijnbergen, CEO of InfinitSpace, said: “Sustainability is a key factor for businesses when selecting a workspace and our research has clearly demonstrated that landlords which prioritise this will be rewarded with uptake in demand.
“In the UK, the built environment is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions; the real estate sector clearly has a key role to play in reducing emissions.
“Our research highlights that this cannot be achieved without helping office landlords to make their portfolios more sustainable.”
Sam Pickering, executive director of sustainability at Incendium (part of the Instant Group), said: “The correlation between established sustainability strategies and higher occupancy rates as revealed in this research is significantly compelling.
“The time is now for owners and landlords to commit to long-term sustainability strategies.
“Otherwise, achieving targets will become more challenging or even missed, and they will get left behind.
“It requires a fundamental mindset and behaviour shift that puts sustainability at the core of business agendas and operating models.”
