A group of top London property owners has produced guidelines and model forms to allow new and existing tenants and their landlords to sign up to energy, water and waste reduction commitments

Green leases have been around for some time, but this is the first time that a mechanism for improving sustainability within existing leases – which can have up to 15 years left to run - has been developed. Members of the Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) including Henderson Global Investors, Hurleypalmerflatt, Meyer Brown and Reed Smith will be trialling the new Memorandum of Understanding over the next six months.

Who picks up the cost has traditionally been a barrier to green leases or green agreements between landlord and tenant. ‘Green Lease Toolkit, Working together to improve sustainability’ aims to overcome this by providing a non-prescriptive set of guidelines and model clauses in both the Memorandum and Green Lease from which the parties can pick and choose depending on their circumstances and the building.

Suggested measures include agreeing how and when energy use, waste and water are measured, sharing data and co-operating on reduction strategies. Landlords may sign up to installing more energy efficient kit when plant needs replacing.

The aim of BBP is to improve the sustainability of London’s existing offices and accelerate reduction in CO2 in line with the Mayor of London’s target to cut CO2 emissions by 60% by 2025 compared to 1990 levels.

Read the whole document at www.lda.gov.uk/BBP

Source

Building Sustainable Design