The growing importance of ESG in property

landmark Auckland buildings such as 82 Wyndham Street.

Argosy’s latest sustainabil-

ity report has several goals relating to ESG mandates including obtaining NABERS NZ ratings for all its offices by 2023, a waste management target of 75-percent landfill diversion on all major projects, moving to an electric vehicle fleet for staff, reducing air travel, and reducing carbon emissions by 2031.

The commitment of Argosy and other corporations to ESG extends to encompassing the social well-being of employees and wider society with initiatives such as provision of subsidised gym memberships, and access to independent employee assistance programmes for mental health. Permanent employees are provided with health, life and disability insurance cover as part of their employment.

Many of the more recent ESG features are likely to soon become part of accounting standards, Bent says.

Bayleys Property Services’ Auckland-based head of retail management Michael Gillon says he is working closely with tenants to ensure their ESG ambitions align with landlords.

“Some great work has been done so far with buildings already awarded the New Zealand Green Building Council’s Green Star ratings for design and performance.

“We’re making good headway with the NABERS NZ accreditation for many buildings we manage. However, there are a number of different sustainability accreditations we’re work-

ing on including the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB),” Gillon says.

“The social side looks at a wide variety of elements including how the property is contributing to the community it’s located in, health and well-being of staff and supply partners, commitment to living wages, with suppliers treated as equals rather than a master and servant relationship.

“It extends to how happy people are in our buildings and why they would want to occupy them,” Gillon says.

“As we hopefully make our way out of the end of the pandemic, the question will be asked as to what tenants and their commercial landlords will do to entice staff back to buildings. If you have a decent health and well-being strategy it will certainly help.

“When it comes to governance, it’s about how transparent the organisation is, compliance and accountability.”

It extends to how happy people are in our buildings and why they would want to occupy them

A version of this article was first published in Bayleys Total Property - Issue 2 2022

There is growing collaboration between landlords and tenants who are insisting ESG components are in place in their workplaces

June - JuLY 2022 Cutting-edge solutions to handle building waste

Construction and demolition waste poses a special challenge for recyclers – it comprises a lot of different tough materials and it is difficult to separate pollutants, Waste Management World reports

AsiaPacific is anticipated to be the leader in the C&D waste recycling market in future, mainly due to the construction of buildings that are in the pipeline and an extensive focus on infrastructural development.

In India, new recycling facilities are in development in various parts of the country, making it a possible contributor from among all AsiaPacific countries.

North America is also expected to see strong growth due to the rising need for eco-friendly construction operations in this region.

C&D waste makes up an enormous portion of the waste stream and comprises different types of materials such as plastics, bricks, wood, concrete, metals and timber, many of which can be recycled or even reused for various other purposes, leading the industry towards a more sustainable future.

Arne Ragossnig from Vienna-based consulting company Die Umweltkonsulenten says the construction sector is responsible for a major share of worldwide resource consumption as well as for the associated energy consumption that is also responsible for a high proportion of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

“Construction waste recycling allows greenhouse gases to be saved and resource consumption to be reduced at the same time.”

The major challenge is to allow pollutants such as asbestos – known as legacy

Driving Up Recycling Rates

A fairly high share of construction waste is already recycled in Central Europe. This is due to legislative boundary conditions that require pre-demolition audits of buildings that are to be deconstructed.

“This allows pollutants and impurities to be removed, thereby enabling a high proportion of recycling for mineral construction waste. In addition, non-mineral construction products such as steel and glass can therefore be recycled as well,” says Ragossnig.

But even though a high proportion of C&D waste is already being recycled in countries like the Netherlands and Austria – with the aim of further increasing the recycling rate – there are many regions where construction waste is not yet classified as waste and it ends up in uncontrolled dumping.

“There is still a great need to increase awareness of the sound waste management of construction waste,” says Ragossnig. substances – to be separated.

Ragossnig explains that in the past – and in some parts of the world this is still the case – asbestos has been and still is used for various construction purposes. Also, other substances such as tar and insulation material that includes brominated flame retardants need to be separated to establish clean material cycles.

Thermal insulation materials, which are used widely to lower heating costs, pose a special challenge. In principle, these insulation materials must be separated during the deconstruction process.

“Most of the time the polystyrene insulation must be thermally treated in order to destroy any brominated flame retardants used in the past. Recycling of mineral construction waste is only possible if non-mineral components are separated,” says Ragossnig.

But how should an ‘easy-to-recycle’ building be constructed?

“The most important thing is to make sure that building components can be separated when the building is deconstructed.

“And we have to raise the awareness and competence of planners and investors to construct the buildings that way and to pay attention to the end-of-life phase of buildings as well, not forgetting that the best way to avoid waste and to reduce resource consumption is to prolong the use phase of buildings.”