Welcome back to the UK Build to Rent Q&A series. This Monday we return with our final Grainger Q&A. Which, just so happens to be our first sustainability & development longevity focused interview. Our respondent this week, is Charlotte Hopkinson, Head of Sustainability & CSR at Grainger. Please enjoy.
Grainger plc is the UK’s largest listed residential landlord and a leader in UK PRS and build to rent. With c.9000 homes in operation and c.8500 in the development pipeline, Grainger is investing £2bn into the delivery of high quality rental homes across the UK.
About
Charlotte Hopkinson is Head of Sustainability & CSR at Grainger plc, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord. In her role, Charlotte is leading Grainger’s ESG strategy, delivering against ambitious targets including the commitment to operate net zero carbon buildings by 2030. Charlotte has 12 years’ experience in sustainability having previously worked as a consultant for JLL and in-house at Disney.
Q: In a time where climate change is at such a pivotal point, how important a role do you believe the BTR industry has and why?
A: I think BTR has an essential role for many reasons – firstly we have an incredible opportunity, as we are designing purpose-built homes so we can incorporate today’s best practice technology and futureproof our buildings. BTR owners will own and operate our assets for the long-term, so the future impacts of climate change will affect the operation of our buildings, and it is important that we consider these in their design.
Finally when everyone is asking for it, it becomes an essential rather than a nice to have, and expectations continue to grow from BTR customers and investors.
Q: Technology is ever changing – how do you ensure your developments stay current and competitively up to date?
A: Our emphasis is less on what the competition is up to and more on meeting the needs and expectations of our customers –
you can have a building full of smart technology but if a customer doesn’t understand how to use it, or doesn’t want to, then it won’t make the building more sustainable.
One of our key areas of focus is on the best low carbon technologies to heat our homes as this is where the biggest impact and the biggest opportunity lies.
Q: What does the BTR development of 2030 look like for you?
A: It will be net zero carbon.
Nature will be more integrated into the design, helping combat overheating and improving the environment for local people.
We will maintain and likely grow the diversity of tenants in our buildings as renting becomes even more in demand from a wide range of demographics and age groups.
Q: Sustainability has, for so long, been associated with additional development costs – how do you sell trialling sustainable methodologies to your investors and financers as a necessity?
A: We are members of the UK Green Building Council whose recent study into net zero carbon BTR development found it has a minimal impact on costs.
As a listed company, our investors have long been conscious of sustainability and factor this into their decision-making, and I believe they expect us to be making investment in this area.
The up-front costs are also likely to be offset by lower compliance costs and costs of retrofitting in the future.
Q: We at UK BTR are of the opinion that modular construction is on the verge of finally having its time in mainstream development – what are your current thoughts on modular and do you ever see it becoming the standard method of construction throughout the UK?
A: Modular has many advantages, particularly during the construction period, such as minimising waste and increasing the speed of construction. As a long-term investor, the speed element is less important to us than certainty of quality, longevity and customer experience.
However during operation there are still outstanding questions on how successful it is in terms of design – for example how you fit modular pods in seamlessly with the rest of the building and how you design them to look and feel like a regular room. Modular can also often struggle to meet the urban design requirements on sensitive city-centre locations.
Once modular can demonstrably outperform traditional construction (and other forms of MMC), it will be a more compelling option for Grainger.
Q: If you had a magic wand that could change anything about our industry to increase the sustainability and development longevity of projects – what would it be?
A: Enable landlords to access customer data such as customers’ energy consumption so we can better understand the actual in-use performance of our buildings.
Q: Anything else you would like to add on a personal note?
To tackle some of the questions around developing net zero carbon homes fit for the future, collaboration is key. We all need to share our knowledge and experiences to help our industry rise to this challenge.
We would like to say thank you to Charlotte for her responses. And, once again, thank you to Grainger for their involvement over the previous weeks. If you’ve missed any, you can catch up on Grainger’s previous Q&A’s on the subjects of Design, Management & Investment using these links.
UK Build to Rent Team
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