Executive Summary: London's Repurposing Opportunity
2 minutes to read
The focus of this year’s London Report is how the sustainable repurposing of buildings, no longer fit for purpose, can be transformed into alternative uses to create vibrant urban spaces, generating commercial and social value. Our Report is structured in three parts containing a series of articles highlighting the challenges and opportunities, sustainability and repurposing poses to the real estate industry.
London’s Green and Sustainable Future – London is a global leader in demonstrating progress to reducing carbon emissions with the built environment central to achieving the accelerated target of net-zero by 2030. We discuss many aspects of a sustainably driven future are already in place and that the challenges of a higher level of obsolescence, forced in part by regulatory changes and also by changing work practices can be tackled by the repurposing of single-use buildings to a mix of higher value uses creating walkable locations.
London’s Appeal to Global Investors – International investors are increasingly looking to real estate for income and wealth preservation as capital allocation plans adjust to incorporate the principles of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) in their portfolios. London is well positioned to attract these rising capital flows and it can play an important role in financing future development opportunities. We discuss the structural factors affecting real estate investors, identify the countries with significant outflows of capital and London’s ability to increase its share of overseas investment.
Repurposing in Practice –The planning environment is focussed on reducing the role of embodied carbon in buildings with repurposing single-use to mixed-use a template for sustainable development. How will the planning regime affect future development of London’s business districts? Are there lessons from the recent experiences of the retail sector that can be learned by the office sector? And what does net-zero truly mean in practice?
Download the Executive Summary