KORE Retrofit & Irish Green Building Council: Commercial Retrofit

Marion Jammet, head of policy and advocacy at the Irish Green Building Council joined KORE Retrofit’s, Lisa Downey to discuss commercial retrofit in Ireland, benefits, supports, Ireland’s climate action goals and hopes for the future. 

Lisa: Is there a particular reason why commercial buildings in Ireland are slower at retrofit uptake than their domestic counterparts?

Marion: We hear a lot more about domestic retrofit, even here at the Irish Green Building Council, when we organise workshops on energy renovation, people have a tendency to speak about domestic retrofit only. If you look in terms of buildings, we have 1.5 million homes that need to be decarbonised by 2050, with just around 10,000 commercial buildings, this would partly explain why we tend to hear more about the domestic side. Commercial retrofit is slightly more complicated, we have a huge diversity of buildings, in terms of the use of the building, from an office to a factory, also in terms of the energy use, ownership and leasing. Some commercial buildings are also residential, so this adds complexity to retrofit. 

Lisa: What other challenges do companies face when looking at retrofitting their properties?

Marion: Diversity is a challenge, you can’t really apply a one size fits all approach to energy renovation in the commercial sector. One challenge we see in commercial versus domestic is that it is not seen as a priority, at least by some, because they have so many competing priorities as well, especially in a smaller business. You can see this from the research from SEAI, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, but perhaps this is linked to the construction industry or energy industry speaking only about the energy savings, and it is far more than just energy savings, it is comfort, health, bills, and these can also influence a commercial business. Also, you could say deep retrofit is perceived as slightly disruptive to a business, especially if your employees are in the building. Many businesses do not own the premises, this can lead to a split incentive decision between the owners and tenants. 

Lisa: A lot of businesses are not informed of the many supports available to them, including SEAI grants and educational resources, do you know of any other supports available to commercial retrofit?

Marion: There are many supports available, especially through SEAI, and technical supports like SEAI energy academy, in terms of what you can learn about your building, measures, and so on. Going back to diversity, it is important to learn about what can be done, and there is a perception that the process is complex, but training and support, especially with smaller businesses, will show financial benefits as well as health and comfort. 

Lisa: When looking at support, who supports our environment? Retrofit of our buildings will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and have a hugely positive impact on the environment. What do you feel would be the biggest environmental impact of commercial retrofit?

Marion: Based on the calculation we have done at the IGBC, the built environment is responsible for about a fifth of our emissions, and by that, I mean heating and cooling, embodied emissions, and by retrofitting these properties we could significantly impact our emissions, There are some great studies by SEAI, showing our commercial buildings are energy inefficient, and small upgrades can reduce our cO2 emissions, so the potential in commercial buildings is huge. Currently, the energy renovation of commercial buildings is low at 4%, but even that is shallow measures, with 0.1% deep measures, so the potential impact is huge if we increase the number of retrofits. 

Lisa: As you mentioned before, there are additional benefits to commercial retrofit, can you talk us through them?

Marion: I think that's something where more research is needed in that area, but that's something we haven't communicated well enough, and by that I mean the construction industry or energy industry in general. If you take a look at when people make the decision to retrofit it's very rare that they only make that decision based purely on energy savings or energy cost. In fact, lots of research that has been conducted with the World Green Building Council, our umbrella organisation, showing that there are many core benefits associated with energy renovation in the commercial sector. There's a lot of research in that area in terms of productivity, but also a decrease in absenteeism, better comfort, better control of temperature, daylight, and I think really if you look at the cost in one of the papers from the World Green Building Council, in office buildings, 90% of the costs in associated with staff costs, in terms of just improving the productivity by one or two percent, it could have a significant impact there, but I think that really one thing I would like to see more research on, specifically in Ireland, better data on these co-benefits, so we could support this messaging as well. I think that's especially important now as we have the hybrid return to the office, and with COVID still in the air, we need to be careful and watch our employees.

Lisa: In relation to the climate action plan from 2019, with our goals for 2030 and 2050, we see specific goals for the domestic market, are there any for commercial?

Marion: Commercial sector is mentioned in the climate action plan, not to the same extent, and also if you look at Ireland's long term renovation strategy which was published in 2020, you do have targets for the commercial sector, really making clear that about 1/3 of all commercial buildings must be retrofitted by 2030 to a 'B' level, and then really a similar target for, basically 1/3 to be retrofitted by 2030, another third by 2040 and the last third by 2050, so that we can reach carbon neutrality by 2050. From that point of view, if you look at where we were four or five years ago, we were constantly calling here at the IGBC for clear targets, so I suppose it's moving in the right direction. What I mean by that is that the targets are really important in terms of providing certainty to the industry that we are serious about retrofitting our building stock and to people as well, to know that it's worth investing in energy renovation for the future, in up skilling your staff and so on. I know we don't see as much in the media about commercial retrofit, but at least we start to see some sort of target, and it's encouraging from that point of view. 

Lisa: When we speak about targets as well. we all know that Ireland is going through a huge construction boom, especially within the housing sector. Thanks to the current building regulations and standards such as LEED and BREEAM, we're now building more low-energy, sustainable, commercial properties as well as domestic. Do you think we should have more of a regulatory approach for retrofit standards for commercial, and the same encouragement that goes to new construction should be going to retrofit as well? 

Marion: I think every business is different in terms of their motivation, some companies would be interested in retrofit for various reasons, but I think in terms of a legal point of view I think there's a few things that could be looked at. I think the nZEB standard for commercial buildings is not as ambitious as it is for residential. For instance, we still have a lot of air conditioning going into commercial buildings that may not be fully justified based on our climate, again that's the kind of thing we would like to see addressed, but also, for instance at the European level, there are lots of talks about minimum energy performance standards, and you may know as well it's something that has been introduced in the UK, and other countries such as the Netherlands or France.

I'm not saying they're a silver bullet, but we do see, for instance in the Netherlands, where you do have legislation there that state that by 2023 you would no longer be able to rent out a commercial property that has an energy performance certificate lower than D, I mean the BER ratings are different across Europe, but having that target, what we can see with our Dutch colleagues, it means banks no longer really want to invest in a property that doesn't reach that specific target, or at least if they see that you don't have a plan to retrofit.

So you can see that this type of measure of minimum energy performance standard could have an impact in terms of retrofit. Saying that, we have to introduce legislation where you have to have technical and financial support, it's not about making life difficult for everyone, it has to be flagged well in advance and it has to come with financial and technical support. Other things that could be looked at are things like green leases, or in your lease, if you are renting there is a commitment with the tenant and the owner to work together to improve the environmental performance of the building. Generally speaking, it does lead to shallow types of retrofit or shallow measures, but I think it's good to start the conversation because it allows both parties to talk about energy, to talk about water, to talk about waste.

By starting that conversation I think you raise awareness and also it seems to be clear with research from SEAI, that when someone does a shallow retrofit they are more than likely to go to the next step, further down the line. So I think that's quite important, and my last point, I think one thing we really would like to see is to start moving towards whole-life carbon assessment, across the board in the built environment, but I think it's highly relevant in the commercial sector, just also to avoid a high level of demolition and then construction, because in terms of carbon, if we are really serious about our carbon targets, there's a lot of embodied energy in the construction material in the building that's being demolished, by that retrofitting this building would mean reducing embodied emissions and reducing the emissions associated with operational energy. It might not be the case for all buildings, but generally speaking, it should be the case, so that's why we would like to see more life cycle assessments.

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