Proposed government legislation will mean that commercial properties in the UK will have to reach EPC grade B or above to be let on a new lease from 2030.

This means that 88% of industrial properties across England and Wales will require improvement or be subject to substantial fines.

Our report takes a quantitative and qualitative approach to reviewing and providing possible solutions to the challenges and opportunity of upgrading industrial properties.

Using the government-recommend improvement measures, we sought to provide proposed works which would allow properties to meet these measures. We have also offered a price range by unit or sq m to put these improvements into practice. 

We then created a cost model to show the impact on EPC ratings for a combination of works, which showed that the more expensive option may not necessarily be the most effective in raising a building’s EPC.

Finally, we held confidential meetings with asset managers to test the robustness of these findings. These conversations showed that retrofitting industrial properties is on the agenda for landlords. They also supported our findings that removing gas central heating is the most effective way to improve an industrial building’s EPC, and that the cost of replacing heating with an alternative power source is prohibitive.