As featured in CoStar, Charles Gibbons argues building systems calibrated for yesterday's climate will fail sooner.
This summer, the UK ran out of superlatives for its weather. Five heatwaves pushed temperatures into the mid-to-high 30s between June and August, with yet another heatwave possible this week.
Nine water companies imposed hosepipe bans, with restrictions now affecting an estimated 27 million people. Roughly three-quarters of England is in drought, and rivers across the south are running at a fraction of their normal levels.
Buildings and infrastructure are typically designed and maintained against historic weather patterns, on the assumption that “normal” conditions will broadly resemble the recent past. That assumption underpins cooling capacity, drainage design and maintenance schedules, and it is now failing.
The collision of extreme heat, drought, water stress and the energy demand driven by round-the-clock air conditioning is worth pausing on.
What looks adequate today may not be adequate on the timescale the asset requires, especially as we approach the new rules for commercial properties over 1,000 square metres to reach at least EPC B rom 2031 as the government raises Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards.
If the UK experiences summers approaching 40°C with increasing regularity, not just as freak one-off events but as a recurring feature of the decade ahead, then systems calibrated for yesterday’s climate will fail sooner, more often, and more expensively than most asset business plans currently assume.
Cooling systems built for occasional peak loads will be run harder for longer, shortening their working life. Water restrictions may become routine, rather than exceptional.
What this means for investors.
For commercial real estate investors, this has practical implications that go well beyond ESG reporting.
Be specific about the asset, not just the portfolio
Two buildings a mile apart can carry very different exposure depending on orientation, glazing, ventilation strategy, drainage infrastructure and patterns of occupation. Portfolio-level risk scores are a useful starting point, but the decisions that protect value can only be made building by building.
Don’t wait for failure to prompt actions
A building that coped in previous summers but struggles in new-normal conditions is telling you something about its resilience margin, and that margin is shrinking. Waiting for equipment failure, occupier complaints or insurance repricing to force the issue is the more expensive way to respond.
Building resilience into the maintenance and capital cycle you already have
Most assets already have planned maintenance programmes and capital expenditure schedules. The opportunity to assess climate risk, overheating, drainage capacity, water stress, store exposure, at the point when plant, roofs, glazing or services are due or renewal anyway.
Solar control, ventilation upgrades, green roofs, improved drainage and water-efficient cooling can all be specified through the normal replacement cycle rather than as emergency retrofit, making them more cost-effective and less disruptive.
For many assts. data-led building optimisation has an important role to play
Many buildings already have building management system platforms, metering, HVAC plant, control strategies and operational data available, but they are not always connected, interpreted or acted on in a way that reflects real-time building use.
Rather than relying solely on manual adjustment or static forecasts, intelligent optimisation like Workman’s IBOS uses live building data to understand when cooling is required, where it is required, and how systems can be operated more efficiently.
Remember the occupier and the lender
Sustainability-conscious tenants and investors are asking harder questions about how a building will perform, and insurers and lenders are asking similar questions of their own. An asset that can demonstrate it understands its climate exposure has a clear advantage in leasing, financing and disposal conversations over one that hasn’t looked.
A different climate requires a different approach
The response shouldn’t be panic, and it shouldn’t be a rush to specify more air conditioning everywhere, which only shifts the problem onto energy demand and running costs.
We need a clear-eyed look at where the vulnerabilities actually sit, and a plan, built into the maintenance and capital programmes already in place, to close them before they close in on the asset.
That means bringing together climate risk and hazard mapping, building-level risk interpretation and practical, costed adaptation planning aligned to maintenance cycles and capex, so resilience becomes part of ordinary asset management rather than an emergency response.
It requires a strategy that protects long-term value and keeps an asset attractive to sustainability-conscious occupiers, not a risk report that sits on a shelf.
This article orignally appeared in CoStar News.
