The environment and sustainability
- Brownfield development
- Environmental contamination
- Flood risk and commercial property
- Green valuation questions
- Sustainable housing
- Whole life costing and building life cycles
Context
Sustainability is a key theme across the built environment. The way in which we develop and refurbish our homes, workplaces, schools, and shopping centres is now determined by a mixture of green regulations, market forces and occupier and consumer aspirations. Sustainability has attracted growing interest, has very practical implications and is stimulating innovation across the built environment around the world.
Driven by international agreements, domestic and European legislation, deepening corporate social responsibility, and public awareness, it is clear that energy, water, and waste will become core elements in the sustainability debate. More broadly the delivery of ‘carbon zero’ homes, offices, shops and infrastructures, and the accelerating need for fresh innovations in the design and management of our built environment to tackle climate change, will continue to drive the sustainability agenda.
Sustainability is a core principle of CEM as a whole and our research has played a key role in spreading the latest thinking on sustainable development throughout the property industry as both an environmental priority and a business imperative for nearly a decade.
Case study:
The Role of the UK Development Industry in Brownfield Regeneration
The UK Government has placed an increasing emphasis on the reuse of brownfield land as part of its sustainable development agenda.
In 2004 CEM responded to this major policy drive to produce a hard hitting report which examined the dynamics and role of residential and commercial property developers in relation to the assessment, remediation and reuse of brownfield land in the UK.
Sponsors and research partners: This report marked the first stage of a two-and-a-half-year project funded by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC). The project is part of the work of a larger consortium, Sustainable Urban Brownfield Regeneration: Integrated Management, funded by EPSRC, with support from government, industry and other stakeholders. Further information: www.subrim.org.uk