TFT works with BPF on Net Zero Carbon research
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Mat Lown
Mat is TFT's Chief ESG & Knowledge Officer. He's a chartered building surveyor and a chartered project management surveyor with more than 25 years of working with many leading property companies, investors and asset managers.
Over the last 10 years, Mat’s focus has shifted towards sustainability and in 2007 he founded TFT’s sustainability consultancy. Mat and his team help TFT’s clients to understand the specific sustainability risks and opportunities when making property investment and development decisions. Ultimately, he would like to see sustainability becoming part of what constitutes best practice.
Mat’s passionate about sustainability and finds that writing and lecturing regularly for RICS and for other organisations is a means of expressing and sharing this enthusiasm. Mat’s articles regularly appear in Construction News, Estates Gazette, RICS and Property Week, and he is a lead author of the RICS Guidance Note, ‘Sustainability – improving performance in existing buildings’. Also of note is Mat’s thesis, ‘Building a Greener Future’, which was published by the CIOB in 1991. He is a member of several sustainability committees including the British Property Federation, British Council for Offices, CIC and Revo.
Mat is interested in how great buildings and places can create delight and he particularly enjoys the creative re-use of existing buildings. The South Bank is a great example of how a place can be rejuvenated by considered new interventions and careful restoration of the original building fabric.
TFT has joined the British Property Federation's (BPF) Net Zero Carbon research project to investigate the barriers to decarbonisation in real estate, and solutions to overcome them.
The initiative will address the challenges faced by the real estate industry as it recognises the need to decarbonise but has taken limited action to achieve it. New political measures, fiscal incentives, procurement rules and more could be part of the solution. As TFT found in our Redefining Building Performance research: many building owners, developers and occupiers struggled to close an 'action gap' on sustainability. The 'gap' refers to the difference between recognising the sustainable potential of a building or portfolio, and fulfilling it. In particular, respondents indicated that measurement proved difficult, and that a lack of collaboration was hindering efforts to take action.
Specific next steps across different specialist roles, building types and even regional areas will vary, but we are sure that cross-industry initiatives are important to drive action for a better impact on the world.
The Net Zero Carbon research project is a joint effort with the BPF and a group of sector specialists. Together we will pursue coordinated action and hope to expand our positive outputs compared to more siloed initiatives.
With buildings responsible for up to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, the property sector has a critical role to play in the fight against climate change. If we can focus our collective efforts on the right solutions, we stand the best chance of accelerating the transition to a net zero built environment.
Mat Lown is Vice Chair of the BPF Sustainability Committee, with the remit of establishing best practice in the industry, helping government to produce useful regulation and bringing together the efforts of wider industry groups such as UKGBC, CIBSE, RIBA and RICS.
"The great challenge our industry now faces is the time remaining to achieve net zero carbon. The only way to get there is for us all to work together, to share data and improve modelling at pace. I'm looking forward to undertaking this work with the BPF to find better solutions and work with a wide group of specialists to implement them."
Mat Lown, Head of ESG at TFT and Vice Chair of the BPF Sustainability Committee
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