Insight Report: The Journey Towards Decarbonisation for Public Sector Estates
Pagabo Live is back for 2025 – continuing our mission to champion knowledge in the public sector.
Presented by our regular host Tom Snee of Cartwright Communications, the first session of the year explored the journey towards decarbonisation for public sector estates. Baily Garner’s head of sustainability, Emily Mansfield, and national education lead, Rob Tyler joined the panel along with Jake Dowling, senior building services manager at Seddon Construction – all bringing their expertise and experience to the discussion.
Our first poll showed a ‘middle ground’ understanding of the decarbonisation process for public sector estates, with 81% of attendees declaring some level of confidence in their existing knowledge. Even better, by the end of the hour, 80% instead cited a high level of confidence – showing that our panel delivered on the brief.
Equally positive to see was a good level of confidence from attendees around their own organisation’s ability to maintain decarbonisation efforts long-term. 27% of people were very confident and 47% were somewhat confident – showing a good level of positivity around sustained success into the future.
Start at the start
Whether looking at individual buildings through to estates with hundreds of assets, the most critical step is understanding the ‘why’ for any scheme. There are multiple strategies that can be taken and the measures that can be introduced could be argued as being countless, but without a clear direction from the client on the exact drivers of a scheme it’s a big task to select the right fork in the road for the desired destination.
For many clients, this begins before briefing and agreeing any scopes of work. It starts even before this, with two key points – the first being identifying the key drivers. Jake detailed that often clients may have set a target year for achieving net zero but may not have a clear understanding of why that timescale has been set, and how – or even if – it can be achieved. With this in mind, when coming in at later stages, contractors delivering works should be looking at briefs closely and challenging them where needed to ensure the right path is taken.
The second point is developing that true understanding of the existing building stock and engaging as early as possible with the specialist project team members to help. As part of this, the way buildings are currently used needs to be considered and should involved engagement with building users. How people feel in a building can impact how they operate within it – with the simplest example being that people will turn up the heating when they are cold.
So, mapping out those concerns can help identify quick wins and easier-to-deliver measures to make a marked difference, which in turn starts to inform a roadmap for your strategy.
On the journey
Once the groundwork of understanding is done, initial scoping and surveys can be conducted – and again having the right specialists in place within your project team as early as possible stands for the greatest level of success here.
The engagement with building users needs to continue throughout the process, making sure that measures installed are maximised by gelling well with how users are operating. For example, using building modelling and user engagement it may identify certain retrofit measures that end up being cancelled out by user behaviour – for example if glazing retains too much heat and more air conditioning is therefore needed for thermal comfort.
From a practical perspective, many measures can be installed easily and when at scale across a larger estate can make an overnight difference to energy consumption – such as switching to LED lighting. However, many measures can be a lot more intrusive and disruptive, so phasing of work to minimise day-to-day work being done in any buildings can be considered – and may be essential to certain operations like healthcare settings.
It doesn’t end at completion
Finally, one of the biggest pitfalls for decarbonisation success is handing over the building at completion and boxing everything off as ‘done’. Once an estate is decarbonised, it’s really the start of the journey – and how that estate is managed moving forwards is important to sustaining success into the future.
Indeed, one attendee in the session raised the question of whether buildings should be undergoing regular ‘health checks’ like MOTs for cars. This was a particularly interesting point for our panellists – and certainly something for project teams to consider implementing.
The post-occupancy stage holds a wealth of data that fosters this continued success. Are things performing as expected? Are building user habits impacting anything in a way that needs to be addressed? And, as building uses can change while systems stay the same, are things still as effective as they can be or do assessments show a new approach is needed based on the new building use?
Engagement again comes into this end stage of the journey. Putting it simply, there is no point installing new systems to improve energy efficiency if the time is not taken to upskill maintenance teams on how to run them properly.
What are the barriers the public sector faces in estate decarbonisation?
We turned to our audience to report their biggest barriers, allowing us to get a real-time picture of the challenges being faced. The results were:
- Lack of funding – 49%
- Lack of knowledge – 10%
- Resistance to change – 8%
- Complexity of existing estates – 30%
- Other – 3%
While based on challenges, this split is tentatively positive – seeing resistance to change and lack of knowledge as lesser issues than those around practical delivery like complexity and funding.
Zoning in on funding, the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme is now on its fourth phase and proving much more robust by basing funding decisions on how effective proposed measures are set to be. This replaces the approach of simply allocating funding on a ‘first come, first served’ basis from the previous three phases.
Such funds – along with sector-specific offerings like the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund – will continue to be absolutely essential for decarbonising public sector estates. So, our panellists reflected positively on now assessing funding allocation based on proposed results – but as funding remains a barrier for many attendees, how can public sector clients make the most of it?
Developing the baseline understanding of the journey that needs to be taken and why, along with those early-stage assessments can be key in maximising funding as application windows open. Having this done already means that you’re already aware of your goals and the baseline, allowing you to identify where and what improvements are needed – allowing you to use digital models to understand how different scenarios may play out. And from there, you can develop the roadmap for funding applications that create the best savings – and biggest chance of success.
Rob added that it’s important for decarbonisation work to be examined in line with wider strategies, not in silo. While this should be the case for any scheme, it’s especially important for projects funded through government schemes, helping to streamline and make the most of both activity and funding. For example, being aware that roofing work is needed in the near future while also seeking to install solar panels means that these work streams can be brought together for optimal delivery – rather than installing solar panels, to then disrupt their service with the roofing work.
A final note: Are accreditations beneficial?
While many in the construction are familiar with certifications like BREEAM and Passivhaus, there are emerging accreditations in the decarbonisation space that many are less familiar with – such as PAS2038, which is a British standard outlining guidelines for retrofitting energy efficiency measures in non-domestic properties.
Our panel were again unanimous in their view that these accreditations are beneficial for our future decarbonisation efforts. They provide a methodology-backed structure, while also setting out a consistent approach and quality assurance across the industry. This means that comparison can be used across the industry for benchmarking and sharing learnings, rather than being in a position where organisations boast having the best building, simply because they say so.
Many accreditations – like PAS2038 and its equivalent for social homes PAS2035 – take a holistic approach, looking at buildings as interconnected systems to find the most efficient route forward. They seek to balance not just the retrofit measures in silo, but also costs and benefits while considering the building managers and occupants. And while delivering to such high standards naturally presents delivery challenges, through championing early engagement with specialists, these accreditations seek to streamline and assure the right measures for every project, while also leaning into new innovations to create more robust designs and strategies.
Claim your CPD credit
Don’t forget that Pagabo Live now has a CPD accreditation for its knowledge offering. If you are tuned in live to our sessions, you will receive a link via email afterwards to claim your CPD credit.
Our next Pagabo Live session will be on Wednesday 19 February at 3pm, when we’ll be taking a deeper dive into the Building Safety Act and how the sector is progressing since it came into force. Click here to register: https://pagabo.co.uk/episodes/webinar-building-safety-act-revisited/
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