Times are a changin’ as the web & corporate social responsibility impacts on our built environment.

The first green buildings were houses built by pioneering individuals, some with sandals and beards, but all realising their actions counted and wanted to reduce their impact on the planet individually as much as they could. Then the late 1990s followed with eco visitor centres mostly funded by local authorities trying to do something green, but generally not actually greening up their own council’s activities as they failed to connect funding green flag waving projects with their day to day activities and stories such as getting recycled paper into council printers being hindered by staff claiming the paper would jam the machines took precedence over green initiatives.

Then came the larger scale eco housing projects funded by social housing providers and encouraged by the Housing Corporation,  and more recently some associations upped the anti, offering even greener schemes to win a share of the ever dwindling pot.  With an emphasis on reducing fuel poverty & a heightened interest in corporate social responsibility the housing associations have had too, and generally wanted too, reduce the running costs of their homes for tenants, which is being achieved to varying degrees, by large scale energy saving programmes of increasing insulations & upgrading boilers so this sector is moving in the right direction.

Local authorities have since followed with investments in schools, under the now defunct BSF project where we have seen some amazing green schools being built, but most authorities have not had the budgets or confidence to green up their remaining stock, but at least they buy recycled or FSC paper now! Most have green procurement policies although this doesn’t always impact on all their actual buying regimes, but hopefully through the Government’s support of Buying Solutions this will improve over time as most authorities know they have to become greener.

The self builders remain the pioneers of new ideas embracing the web as a tool for research & adopting new technologies, so over last decade we have seen plenty of grand scale ‘green’ houses filled with the latest eco-bling & technological innovations. Whereas spec built housing is still very much geared around minimum performance to comply with building regulations to gain maximum profit, but most big house builders have at least one greenish project on the go, knowing that they will inevitably have to build to higher standards and that they need to been seen to be doing something positive before they are forced to change.  There are even discussions about whether clients will pay more for greener homes and with energy costs rising the reverse psychology is more likely, with home buyers seeing homes with high running costs as less desirable therefore less valuable. This is likely to reduce the value of older buildings & recently built homes compared with the future near passive new homes which will cost a fraction to run.

As expected the commercial sector has been slower with few commercial green offices and industrial sheds being built. Many are built speculatively still with old fashioned overheating glazed facades & without an interest in environmental issues. Companies with low levels of interface with the public have been slower to realise the impact of sustainability issues on their sectors, so changes to spec built offices and warehouses have been driven by short term economic influences, whereas lower running costs and lower environmental impact buildings will become essential requirements for public interfacing tenants so it is likely this sector will change more rapidly over the next few years.

Retail buildings are changing, as consumer focused businesses realise that their environmental impact is becoming of interest to their shoppers, with examples of major supermarkets building greener stores and petrochemical companies putting solar panels on their roofs. So with the increase in corporate level understanding of consumer knowledge, mostly gained online, many companies are tackling areas of impact beyond their product offering. M&S is an example of a corporate scale business making green statements and significant positive changes to their business to stay ahead of the market. Well presented green initiatives make good commercial sense and wins customers confidence in a brand. Whereas claims of environmental damage or neglect could harm a brand’s image beyond the cost of the action and with the internet, social networking & viral messaging significant levels of messaging can take place rapidly in ways never previously experienced. The term ‘corporate social responsibility’ is really driven by ‘customer induced corporate social responsibility’, as companies know they are expected to adopt more responsible ways of trading. Some of course do it through a desire to be green but those that aren’t interested realise they have no choice, so whichever way you look at it, sustainability is still a driver for change and this is and will affect our built environment.