28th June 2023, London - 40 Holborn Viaduct, owned by Nuveen and managed by BNP Paribas Real Estate, has been awarded the top accolade in the CUBE Competition historical data category for slashing 38.8% of its energy consumption in a challenge to compete against its own past energy consumption.
The CUBE Competition is the UK’s first initiative to tackle the dual challenges of energy efficiency improvement and occupier engagement in commercial buildings through gamification, and has helped buildings reduce energy consumption by up to 39% - collectively enough to power 5,000 homes for a year. It uses an innovative approach to bring landlords, building managers and occupiers together, mobilising them to reduce energy consumption through changing behaviour – the logical first step to net zero.
The inaugural year of the competition featured 30 participating buildings, ranging from grade II listed buildings to iconic skyscrapers like the “Walkie-Talkie” and the “Cheesegrater”. At its awards ceremony today, hosted in partnership with Nuveen Real Estate and BNP Paribas Real Estate at 70 St Mary’s Axe, it unveiled a total saving of over 6,087 tonnes of CO2 across 540,895 sqm of commercial space, collectively saving its participants £8m in energy costs.
Mark Bruno, Chief Ambassador of CUBE commented: “Our goal was to galvanise the industry into taking stronger action, using the tried and tested tool of gamification. By encouraging participants to adopt the spirit of competition, they strive to reduce the carbon footprint of their commercial buildings, while also coming together to share experiences and successes. The competition’s first year has delivered some impressive results, and we’re delighted that so many big names from across the real estate world jumped at the opportunity.”
Josh Spencer. Transformation Sustainability Manager at BNP Paribas Real Estate commented: “The first year of CUBE’s initiative led us on a challenging but exciting journey to reduce energy consumption and emissions together with our occupiers. The level of engagement and collaboration from our partners surpassed our expectations, and we saw everyone from diverse building stakeholders including contractors and landlords to property managers and occupiers keen to contribute. Ultimately, it’s this level of deep, continuous and diverse collaboration that is needed if we are to eventually reach our sustainability goals and reach our ultimate net-zero target.”
Richard Hamilton-Grey, Head of Sustainability, Europe at Nuveen Real Estate, added: “We entered the CUBE initiative because reducing energy use in buildings is one of the best avenues the industry has towards achieving net zero carbon, and what CUBE does in bringing together landlords, building managers and occupiers is encourage behavioural change from the ground up. Engaging with occupiers is critical to delivering the transformation required to achieve Net Zero Carbon, not to mention its potential to unlock significant savings.”
With the first year of the competition concluding, the results produced some interesting findings. The expectation was that large buildings would do significantly better, but medium-sized buildings stole the spotlight saving 18% annually, compared to 12% for large sized buildings.
Another surprising result was the BREEAM-certified buildings still had a large capacity for energy savings, with a substantial average energy saving of 22%. In all, the average energy intensity of CUBE buildings before the competition was 262 kWh/m², but after the competition, this reduced considerably to 215 kWh/m². While significant, buildings across the UK will need to continue their efforts to meet UK Green Building Office Intensity Targets of 90 kWh/m2 by 2030.
