Colmore Plaza Proves Its Sustainable Credentials With New ‘Excellent’ Accreditation

London - Global private equity firm, The Carlyle Group (“Carlyle”), announces that its landmark asset Colmore Plaza has become the first office building in Birmingham to achieve the sought after BREEAM ‘Excellent’ In-Use accreditation, a new scheme that measures a building’s sustainable credentials once in occupation.

BREEAM has always been a reliable measure of good building design but what it couldn’t do historically was measure a building's real sustainable [performance]. The new BREEAM In-Use assessment, which came into effect in March this year, gets around this by measuring factors such as building management performance and organisational effectiveness after occupation, to get a true measure of a building’s operational sustainability.

Almost two years after the building’s launch, the new assessment has proved that Colmore Plaza is extremely sustainable in use, in fact more so than the building’s initial design which previously achieved a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ score under the original 2006 ratings. This measure therefore closes the gap between design aspiration and operational performance, something that is of increasing importance to new occupiers.

With the recent success of securing Amey’s European Design Hub that is due to move into the building later this month, and ongoing interest from a number of other corporate occupiers, the newly achieved accreditation is set to raise the building’s stakes even higher in the core city centre office market, making Colmore Plaza the obvious choice for modern, cost and efficiency conscious businesses.

Mark Harris, Director at The Carlyle Group, said: “As well as proving that the building is extremely efficient and sustainable in occupation, the BREEAM In-Use assessment exercise has also highlighted ways in which we can improve the monitoring of the building’s performance, something that is constantly assessed by our dedicated onsite building and facilities management team.

“There is no doubt that this accreditation adds value to current and prospective tenants, as well as complementing the city’s aspiration to compete on a national and international level. Inward investment teams such as Locate in Birmingham continue to attract government office relocations that require new accommodation to be BREEAM Excellent standard as a minimum and Colmore Plaza is now set to meet and even exceed this requirement.

“Increasingly, corporate occupiers need to demonstrate commitment to the environment and staff through a corporate social responsibility strategy. The building’s credentials will allow corporates to tick these boxes, save money and benefit from the highest specification and hi-tech building outside of London.”

Mark added: “With so few buildings in the region with this accreditation, the new standard sets the building apart, particularly as the In-Use assessment is a more relevant and ‘real time’ measure of what occupiers are set to gain from the building’s efficiencies as well as flexibility of space on offer.”

Operating a building represents a major cost. With increasing energy prices and the current economic outlook, cutting energy, water, waste and other such costs through the results of the BREEAM In-Use assessment can be a relatively easy way of improving profitability that can then be passed onto the building’s tenants, as well as improving the environmental performance, sustainability credentials and carbon footprint associated with an organisation’s accommodation.

The BREEAM In-Use scheme is split into three parts: asset performance (the building), building management performance (the operation of the building), and organisational effectiveness (how occupiers manage their activities within a building). Each of these produces a separate rating. The process leads to a certificate based on the three ratings.

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