FUTURE PROOFING REALITIES
Scaling and sustainability
Laurence Aston talked of the need to make buildings flexible so they can be adapted once the market reaches saturation point.
“It’s important in the design to consider what’s coming and think beyond the current bubble. What will be happening in five years' time? A decade?”
Daniel Pagella of ARC Group was sceptical about the way repurposed buildings are sometimes positioned as a means to quickly meet demand. Office to laboratories conversions are much talked about in the market but he queried whether some of the proponents truly understand the fit-out costs of a life science laboratory.
James York of Morgan Sindall took up the point. “It’s important the developer makes the commitment clear. If you’re a life science business scaling up and you’ve just raised £30 million, you don’t want to spend £10 million on a fit-out.”
Laurence Aston felt the definition of ‘lab enabled’ was weak and that landlords need to be more focused on what ‘lab ready’ really means.
He described the transformation from office to lab as a “completely disruptive process” that needs to be addressed by the developer, not left to the occupier.
“There are a lot of small businesses that just want some space. They’re not particularly precious about it.
They want a pre-fitted lab and in various sizes from 4 to 10-person company; or from a 20 to a 50-person company. We do see developers finding good value from [these schemes] because they can let them over and over again. "
As ESG agenda grows in importance, the panel considered the expectations of investors, developers and occupiers in what is an energy intensive industry. Neil Stevens of Exigere felt the supply chain well understands ESG is a binary issue in order to prequalify for a Science Project, recognising the great importance this subject has to our clients.
If contractors aren’t doing the right things towards ESG, they won't get on the tender list.
Laurence Aston commented: “We're seeing in quite a lot of focus on ‘E’ and we're beginning to see some more focus on the ‘S’ coming in as people are thinking about the well-being of the people who work and how their businesses fit into the communities around.
James York of Morgan Sindall Construction pointed out that about 10% of the scoring on a typical tender related to ESG performance.
“It’s a significant amount and as a business we have done a huge amount of work in this area – whether that’s creating carbon calculation tools like CarboniCa to, at the other end of the spectrum, having a systematic and measurable approach to ensuring that genuine Social Value accrues in terms of local jobs, skills and spend. As with so many aspects of delivering major projects, the earlier we can come into the process, the more we can contribute. What developers and occupiers want is really well performing science buildings - and the definition of that continues to evolve.”
Like so many jobs, the earlier we can come into the process, the more we can contribute.
