Legal & General Portfolio.
United Kingdom
Investing for the future: the Technical Building Performance Engineer Framework is a new way of operating buildings.
Together with Legal & General Investment Management – one the largest institutional investment management firms in Europe – we have pioneered a new way of operating buildings.
LGIM, whose extensive property portfolio includes offices and shopping centres throughout the UK, have set themselves the goal of having the most sustainable building portfolio. In order for LGIM to maintain their status as the landlord of choice, they also put the tenant at the heart of everything that they do and recognise that a smoothly functioning building is essential to achieving this goal. This is where Hoare Lea comes in.
Giving value: aspiring to grow
We work across multiple property investment funds for the firm and are one of two consultants on the framework for particular property funds – we are the designated first-choice consultant for large, complex shopping centres.
We were engaged to deliver key support services for the portfolio, including strategic advice on maintenance contracts and service level agreements. Our approach is to use our engineering knowledge to help the client focus investment and achieve the best returns both in renewing/extending asset value.
We also provide proactive advice on improving the maintenance activities and specify highly efficient services to reduce the portfolio’s carbon footprint.
We have worked closely with the client to improve the operational performance of the building stock by advising on how to coordinate services investment and monitoring the effectiveness of the on-site maintenance activities.
Our engineering knowledge empowered the client to achieve business aspirations; this led to us extending our relationship. We now act as the client’s first point of call – providing a comprehensive and connected approach. This has also meant further appointments for our other specialist groups and local design offices – a truly holistic service.
We have developed a pioneering framework whereby there is always an expert on hand for each and every building. It’s never been done like this before.
The expert is termed the Technical Building Performance Engineer (TBPE). Each building has dedicated TBPE who can resolve issues quickly and without fuss, thereby minimising any risk of disruption to the tenants. And it goes even further than minimising downtime. Our regular site attendance and communications with the maintenance teams and access to the building intelligence systems (such as the BMS, air quality monitoring software and metering analysis) means that we are able to pre-empt situations before they arise and can mobilise the maintenance team into action before the tenant is even aware there’s a problem.
We have developed various tools in order to ensure a level of quality across the portfolios. These include our building performance logs, our balanced score card submissions and our water treatment and quality trackers. These systems, and others we have developed, give comfort to the asset managers that we are performing our duties and that the buildings are doing what they are supposed to be.
The building performance logs are excellent resources for the teams and to track progress.
Traditionally built environment experts, such as ourselves, are engaged in an operational building in a reactive way. We get called in to address a specific issue (temperature imbalance, for instance), or to report for a specific output (production of ESOS reports, or maintenance audits). This CIBSE-nominated framework with LGIM turns this on its head and is a proactive approach. The TBPE is always on hand to address anything that comes up, quickly and without fuss. At the same time they can address the more regulatory aspects of operational buildings such as planned maintenance strategies.
Our approach is to use our engineering knowledge to help the client focus investment and achieve the best returns both in renewing/extending asset value.
The beauty of this type of framework is that it means the buildings are always ready to adapt and address and changes to the industry quickly without the need for new appointments and new administration headaches.
And the existing buildings market is changing rapidly. There is new guidance, policy and regulation almost weekly. Most recently we have been able to help LGIM address the changes in the heat network and billing regulations. Having an expert available who understands the intricacies of the building meant that when the surveys needed to be done, there was no need to go out and find the right person and for them to spend time trying to figure out how the building works.
And we are seeing the same impact when it comes to the Net Zero Carbon (NZC) agenda. LGIM have an ambitious goal to become a NZC organization by 2030. This means that all scope 1 and 2 emissions in their portfolio must meet stringent energy-use targets. Having the TBPE involved meant that a plan for meeting these targets for each and every building was developed at speed. All that time a consultant would normally have to spend, surveying and understanding the building, was saved, as the TBPE already knows these buildings inside out.