Skip to main content
Facilitate Magazine: Informing Workplace and Facilities Management Professionals - return to the homepage Facilitate magazine logo
  • Search
  • Visit Facilitate Magazine on Facebook
  • Visit Facilitate Magazine on LinkedIn
  • Visit @Facilitate_Mag on Twitter
Visit the website of the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management Logo of the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management

Main navigation

  • Home
  • News
    • Comment
    • People
    • Reports
    • Research
  • Features
    • Analysis
    • Features
    • Round Tables
    • Webinars
  • Outsourcing
    • Contract Finder
    • Contracts
    • FM Business Models
    • Interviews
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Opinion
    • Procurement
    • Trends
  • Know-How
    • Explainers
    • Legal Updates
    • White Papers
  • Jobs
  • Topics
    • Workplace Services
      • Hospitality
      • Catering
      • Cleaning
      • Front of House
      • Grounds Maintenance
      • Helpdesk
      • Mailroom
      • Manned Guarding / Security
      • Pest Control
      • Washroom Services
      • Disaster Recovery
      • Specialist Services
    • Professional Performance
      • Behavioural Change
      • Continual Professional Development
      • Education
      • Management
      • Recruitment
      • Training
    • Workplace Performance
      • Benchmarking
      • Health & Wellbeing
      • Operational Readiness
      • Procurement
      • Security
      • Workplace User Experience
      • Workplace Culture
    • Compliance
      • Health & Safety
      • Risk & Business Continuity
      • Standards
      • Statutory Compliance
    • Building Services
      • Architecture & Construction
      • Asset Management
      • Building Controls
      • Building Fabric
      • Drinking Water
      • Fire Protection
      • HVAC
      • Landscaping
      • Mechanical & Electrical
      • Building Security
      • Water, Drainage & Plumbing
    • Technology
      • Building Information Modelling
      • CAFM
      • Data & Networks
      • Document Management
      • Information Management
      • Internet of Things (IoT)
      • Software & Systems
    • Energy management
      • Energy Management Systems
      • Electricity
      • Gas
      • Solar
      • Wind
    • Sustainability
      • Environmental Quality
      • Social Value
      • Waste Management
      • Recycling
    • Workspace Design
      • Agile Working
      • Fit-Out & Refurbishment
      • Inclusive Access
      • Lighting
      • Office Interiors
      • Signage
      • Space Planning
      • Storage
      • Vehicle Management / Parking
      • Washroom
    • Sectors
      • Corporate Office
      • Education
      • Healthcare
      • Manufacturing
      • International
      • Retail
      • Sports & Leisure
      • Regions
  • Buyers' Guide
Quick links:
  • Home
  • Topics
News
Professional Performance
Sectors

Life and work 2020: Seminar two

Open-access content Tuesday 13th July 2010 — updated 2.38pm, Tuesday 5th May 2020
Jonathan Porritt
BIFM member link

15 July 2010

by Cathy Hayward


The second seminar on Life and Work in 2020, organised by Advanced Workplace Associates explores how climate change could bring opportunity in the future

Successive governments haven’t been smart about the way they have communicated climate change to business. That was the message from Jonathan Porritt, founder of Forum for the Future speaking at the second seminar on Life and Work in 2020, organised by Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA). “It’s become a drab debate where climate change is portrayed as an apocalyptic vision of hell which destroys our whole world.”
There’s a perception that climate change is going to make our difficult business lives even more difficult, he said. “The government doesn’t talk about the upsides – the job creation, how factories and manufacturing facilities will change and the wealth creation,” he told the group of senior facilities and workplace professionals. “But the debate will change. In 2020 we will look back and question why climate change was so masochistic, so costly and was all about beating us with a big stick, rather than the other way.”

The retrofit and refurb business would benefit most from the 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, Porritt said, citing the likes of Carillion, Balfour Beatty and Skanska as examples of companies who were just waiting for the existing models to develop before developing more into this market, in addition to new entrants. Technology in new builds was all very exciting, he added, but as 60 per cent of our buildings today will still be in use in 2015, the focus needed to be on bringing those facilities up to a low carbon standard.

As a result business would benefit from substantially reduced operating costs, Porritt added, citing figures from the Carbon Trust that showed low carbon economies bringing a £4.5bn net contribution to UK plc. “So why does everyone talk about climate change being a matter of cost? It’s a huge boost to increase efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness.”

While new sophisticated technologies in lighting, heating and ventilation were essential, it was the low-tech solution that was most important – the way buildings and energy were used and managed, added Porritt, laying responsibility firmly at the facilities manager’s door. Architects also had an essential role to play at the start of the building’s life: “Architects emerge from their ivory towers practically blind to the reality of designing for a low-carbon future.”    

A changing landscape


Zahl Limbuwale, chair of the British Computer Society’s datacentre special interest group, acknowledged that datacentres were the worse offenders in terms of energy use in non-domestic buildings. “We are not efficient as an industry, less than 1 per cent of the energy taken from fossil fuels is used effectively by central processing units in datacentres.” The embodied energy in ICT equipment is so complex that it’s currently almost impossible to measure, he said. AWA’s Andrew Mawson, chairing the following discussion, challenged both speakers that the way to reduce your carbon footprint was to use your building stock more effectively: “Increasing occupancy of a building by encouraging hot-desking and increased flexible and mobile working means that you can reduce the amount of buildings that you occupy and automatically reduce your carbon.”

The 2020 seminar series aims to build a picture of how life, work and the workplace will be in 2020. The inaugural seminar, focused on the likely macro-economic, demographic and social context for the UK in the world in the next decade, took place in April; the second explored the future of sustainability; and the third, to take place in late September will look at technology and will be reported exclusively in FM World and at www.fm-world.co.uk


Predictions for 2020
Jonathan Porritt

• China will dominate the world in clean technology
• The UK will lead the world in offshore wind and marine technology
• The Green Investment Bank, being created in 2011, will have delivered £150-£200bn
• The refurbishment of non-domestic buildings will be a multi-billion pound business in its own right
• The roofs and facades of non-domestic buildings will be prime assets in their own right and will be covered in renewable technology

Zahl Limbuwale

• Constant hunger for on-demand technology will not change. It will drive IT to become a utility
• 80 per cent of non-specialised businesses and consumer computing will be provided by autonomonic mega datacentre
• 90 per cent of ICT hardware is fully recycled and reused
• ICT energy use grows to 15 per cent of total energy use in the developed world and reduces CO2 in ICT-enabled processes by 80 per cent
• First organic computers arrive meanwhile mainstream hardware in datacentres becomes specialised, liquid cooled, high density devices


 

Also filed in:
Topics
News
Content
Professional Performance
Sectors

You might also like...

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Linked in
  • Mail
  • Print

Today's top reads

 

Latest Jobs

Project Leader (Maternity Cover One Year Contract)

Cambridge
Circa £50,000 Pro Rata + Benefits & Opportunities
Reference
56378

Maintenance Supervisor

Surrey
Up to £43,000 + Excellent Package & Opportunities
Reference
56376

Regional Facilities Manager

South West England
Circa £40,000 + Benefits & Opportunities
Reference
56375
See all jobs »

 

 

Sign up to our newsletter

News, jobs and updates

Sign up

Subscribe to print

Sign up to receive our bi-monthly magazine

Subscribe
Facilitate magazine cover, June 2020
​
FOLLOW US
@Facilitate_Mag
Facilitate Magazine
Facilitate Magazine
CONTACT US
Contact us
Tel: 020 7880 6200
​

IWFM

About IWFM
Become a member
Qualifications
Events

Information

Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Cookie Policy
Think Green

Get in touch

Contact us
Advertise with us
Subscribe to Facilitate Magazine
Write for Facilitate Magazine

General

IWFM Jobs
Help

© 2022 • www.facilitatemagazine.com and Facilitate Magazine are published by Redactive Media Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any part is not allowed without written permission.

Redactive Media Group Ltd, 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ