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Collaborate To Accumulate: How Facilities Management Can Collectively Reach Climate Goals

With emissions targets firmly under the microscope of a wide range of sectors, Paul de Kock, head of projects at Pinnacle Group, discusses how businesses and their facilities management teams can deliver a partner-led approach to reach our climate objectives.

With COP27 emphasising a growing global focus on how climate targets can be reached, businesses are beginning to take a renewed approach to their net zero strategies and how they can do their part in tackling the challenges we collectively face.

Last year, the UK government formalised the commitments it made as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, pledging that all sectors of the economy will be fully decarbonised in 2050. This is a massive statement of intent, and one which needs nationwide buy-in to be successful.

As businesses that manage and maintain buildings, with the health and wellbeing of the local communities who use them in mind, our industry faces a collective responsibility. Our sector is one of the biggest sources of emissions, especially those created by our supply chains.

The key to tackling this is to understand where we have come from – whether that be through thorough carbon accounting, baseline measurements or simply taking stock of the current situation – before setting a proper course for where we’re heading. We can then incorporate the same Science Based Targets (SBT), that are being used as national and international benchmarks of sustainability success.

Be A Gatekeeper

While facilities management brings with it the challenge of being ultimately responsible for a building’s emissions, it also creates a real opportunity to lead by example and bring about positive change.

With the right tools, facilities management providers can find themselves in a unique position to be able to assess a building’s emissions in real time, and therefore bring value by acting as a “sustainability gatekeeper”. This is achieved with a thorough assessment of both hard and soft facilities, including the lighting, energy usage, cleaning methods and building fabric maintenance, and using evidence-based decisions.

It is not only essential to deliver measurable, sustainable facilities management services for clients, this same due diligence needs to be reflected in our own businesses and wider supply chains too. This is most notably evidenced with Scope 3 emissions – those produced by activities outside of a business' own operations, but are nevertheless imperative to bring under control in the wider quest to net zero.

By having a robust strategy in place and available for all partners to review, businesses can solidify their sustainability credentials, meaning that the advice and recommendations given are coming from a solid foundation.

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A Holistic View

We need a holistic approach to truly make an impact and bring about the changes that are needed to achieve the ambitions of net zero. Facilities managers must look beyond just the buildings they manage and consider the sustainability of their whole operation.

Fleet is often an area where facilities management providers have a significant impact on their environment, but it is often unaccounted for or under-valued by many.

Vehicles support our national operations and, as many providers will testify, are essential to the delivery of important works. The problem we face is that more than 600 vehicles in our fleet create emissions of roughly 3,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum, equivalent to one million litres of road fuel. Clearly, this is a big contributor to our overall emissions, and therefore the plan to eventually replace the entire diesel fleet with electric vehicles has formed one of the key parts of our roadmap to net zero. This needs to be a priority for the wider industry and the country.

Hitting Your Straps

However you shape your approach, it is important that your targets are realistic and can stand the test of any business challenges, particularly in the current challenging economic climate.

Facilities management partners must demonstrate real credibility when it comes to sustainability in order to authoritatively advise and recommend on the best services. As we approach 2030 and beyond, this will only become more crucial. Those who plan and act now will reap the benefits that a more sustainable way of working can bring - both in terms of financial savings and protecting our planet.