FM World October 2016 taster edition

I N F O R M I N G FA C I L I T I E S M A N A G E M E N T P R O F E S S I O N A L S

ETERNAL

fm-world.co.uk / October 2016

TA ST E R E D I T I O N The management of sustainability is evolving – and FM is at its heart

CHALLENGE TEN YEARS ON What BIFM reporting tells us about sustainability

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE FM’s place in the emerging world of social value

LAUGHING MATTER What FMs can learn from stand-up comedians

F M WO R LD

OC TOBER 2016

CONTENTS COM M UNI TY

2 2 PE R SPE C T IV E S The four most interesting and insightful opinions on FM this month 24 T HINK TA NK How important is the issue of accessibility in your organisation?

27 A BIT A BOU T YOU Cova Montes says FM at the National Theatre can be like a game of chess

ANA LYS I S

7 ESOS The energy scheme experienced slow take up, but a new plan is in place

3 4 C A LL S TO AC T ION The events, surveys and discussions that deserve your attention

1 0 TH E D EGREE OF FM LE ARN IN G Apprenticeship standards and funding are in place, but who will take the lead?

3 5 F U T U R E V ISION How VR technology can help streamline on-site maintenance tasks 3 6 C A R E E R D E V E LOPM E N T Neil Mullarkey on how improvised comedy can help develop communication skills

3 0 OC TOBE R @ BIF M The people and projects currently informing BIFM activity

8 O U T I N THE COL D? The HVAC market is shrinking, but more offices want AC units

KNOW LE DGE

3 9 V E RT IC A L GA R D E N M Y T H S Six misconceptions about green walls and their upkeep 40 E X PLA INE R - A IRB U S The FM team shares lessons learned from its major Filton project

12 U NI VER S ITY E STATE S Students desire greater flexibility between study and social spaces

42 D ON’ T TA KE A H I T Failure to comply with vacant property legislation could invalidate your insurance

13 NEWS MAK E RS The stories proving most popular with FM World’s online visitors this month

FM World’s new in-depth analysis section 46 SUSTAINABILTY: BEYOND GREEN Sustainability priorities, and the FM profession’s ability to oversee their implementation, have changed considerably in the 10 years since BIFM’s first sustainability survey report in 2007.

50 A ME AS URE OF S OCIAL E N TE RPRIS E Organisations can make their presence felt in three key areas under the social element of sustainability – people, place and economy. But how do you measure it?

58 SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FACTORS 70% of the world’s population is set to live in a city by the year 2050. How sustainability is approached from a city-wide perspective is thus of ever greater importance.

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60 HIGH TEC SOLUTION The variety of environmental sustainability in OC TO B E R ’ S TO P I C Britain’s greenest THE SHIFTING building, the multiSANDS OF SUSTAINABILITY award winning Enterprise Centre (TEC) in Norfolk, W W W. B Iis F M .O RG .U K / F M WJ O I N impressive indeed.

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F RO NT D E S K A N A LY S I S

A P P R E NT IC E SHIP S

DEFINING THE DEGREE OF FM LEARNING W O R D S : M A R I N O D O N AT I

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY

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he Department of Education has concluded its consultation on proposals for the development of new standards for apprenticeships, including in the FM sector.

Since 2013, so-called Trailblazers - groups of stakeholders - have been putting together their plans for developing new standards aimed at helping to reach the government’s target of three million new apprenticeship starts between 2015 and 2020.

So what do FM apprenticeships hope to achieve, how will those developing them ensure that they will provide the necessary quality in training, and are they being developed by the right balance of stakeholders?

The Department of Education says that the apprenticeships are being designed to be of high quality and endow apprentices with skills relevant to employers.

Michael Walby, director of apprenticeship programmes at KPMG, says that this is a strength of the standards being developed.

“Traditionally, apprenticeships have often been developed through the supply side, but with the Trailblazer process it’s in the hands of the employers,” he says.

“We need to ensure entry

routes into our organisation that enable individuals to reach all levels of seniority, irrespective of background or route, and ensure that apprentices are seen in the same light as graduates.”

Paul Wyton, principal lecturer in facilities management, subject lead for FM at Sheffield Hallam University, agrees.

“There’s input from people from HR to senior operators, people that understand it from an operational point of view and an educational point of view,” he says.

“FM is crying out for this.

The whole point of degree apprenticeships is that it is recognising it and funding it at that level.”

One of the proposals is to develop an apprenticeship standard for Facilities Management

Empoloyers are being given more influence over the development of skills under new apprenticeships reforms

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Typical responsibilities for Facilities Management Director of Estates Apprenticeship Level 7 role:

Promotion of facilities management FM strategy development Knowledge management in an FM context Leading partnership and change in FM Governance, risk and compliance in an FM context Strategic estate management Influencing the built environment Strategic financial management in FM Strategic procurement and contract management fm-world.co.uk

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Director of Estates Degree Apprenticeship level 7.

This would cover strategic roles involving multinational FM function responsibility, building a profitable pipeline of work, and planning, developing and initiating strategic and operation change. Typical job roles it would cover would be head of estates, FM business development manager, and head of FM operations.

Across the spectrum

Fraser Talbot, professional standards and education manager, BIFM, says: “It is important that the development of the standards is representative of the entire spectrum of FM. FM covers a wide variety of organisations and sectors from large service providers to small in-house teams. Representation

by SMEs is crucial to this process and we would welcome the involvement of these organisations.”

Katie Nightingale, early careers manager at Kier, lead employer for the proposed development of the new standard, says: “FM is a dynamic and changing industry, and the intention of the employer group when developing these standards was to try and futureproof them as much as possible.

This includes emphasis on new technologies as.U business W W W. B I F Msuch .O RG K / F M WJ O I N information modelling and how

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S U P P LY S I D E

BUSINESS NEWS

F M -WO R L D.CO.U K / N E WS

CONTRACTS DEALS Kudos wins £8m Mermaid deal Caterer Kudos has been awarded a seven-year deal with The Mermaid events venue in London.

The partnership deal, worth nearly £8 million, will see Kudos provide a new range of food for meetings, weddings and events at the 600-seater auditorium in Blackfriars, as well as the venue’s River Rooms and Queenhithe space.

Spie UK develops tunnel vision for BT BT has awarded mechanical and HVAC engineering firm Spie UK a contract to upgrade works on 23 km of its networking tunnels.

Enhancements to the underground channels, which carry cabling forming the base of BT’s central communications infrastructure, will save BT about £1.5 million and remove 3,500 tonnes of CO2 from its carbon footprint.

Carillion wins £90m total FM contract with Centrica Carillion has won a £90 million contract to provide total FM services for energy specialist Centrica.

Carillion has been working with Centrica for more than a decade as managing agent. In 2012, Carillion won a £50 million contract to provide FM and energy-efficiency services for 92 p Centrica p properties.

Incentive group pockets a three-year deal with Dollar UK Facilities services organisation Incentive FM Group has secured a three-year contract with consumer financial services firm Dollar UK. The company will provide a full range of FM and maintenance services across Dollar UK’s corporate offices and high street stores.

ISS eyes up five-year Moorfields extension Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London has extended its contract with ISS for five more years, an extension of the original 2009 deal. ISS will continue to provide healthcare cleaning services at the specialist hospital in the £10 million deal.

Imperial War Museums awards soft FM deal to Servest Servest has won a five-year contract with Imperial War Museums (IWM).

The contract, which begins in November, sees Servest responsible for soft services at sites including the Imperial War Museum London, the Churchill War Rooms, and HMS Belfast.

National Assembly for Wales retains Charlton House Charlton House has retained its contract to provide full catering and hospitality services at the National Assembly for Wales for the third consecutive term.

The five-year deal, worth in excess of £3 million, will see Charlton House continue to provide catering and hospitality services to Assembly Members, support staff and the visiting general public across the National Assembly for Wales estate in Cardiff Bay.

Ultimate maintains its tall order at City skyscraper Ultimate Security will continue to provide its services at Tower 42, the iconic London development, until 2020, in a £2.2 million-a-year contract. Completed in 1980, Tower 42 – the City’s third-tallest building – has about 320,000 square feet of space across 42 floors.

Occupied 24 hours a day, the building houses several multidisciplinary and multinational tenants, restaurants, a health club, and many other services.

DE A L OF TH E MON TH

NIC lands £50m Morrisons FM works NIC Services Group has been awarded a £50 million contract with retailer Morrisons. The deal, which sees NIC responsible for cleaning services at 160 stores in the north of England and Scotland, marks the first time Morrisons has outsourced the services.

NHS TRUST IN HUNTINGDON PICKS RYHURST FOR 15-YEAR ESTATES PARTNERSHIP

Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust has appointed Ryhurst, provider of health estate management services, as its long-term joint venture partner to deliver a land and estates strategy at its 40-acre site serving Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. Over an initial 15-year period, the Strategic Estates Partnership (SEP) will realign the estate to improve patient care while also bringing forward “an innovative and sustainable health campus, combining living, care, and education plans”.

TO ACCESS THE FULL VERSION OF FM CONTRACTS TICKER Oltec FM lands Trident retail extension • Engie wins five-year TFM contractWORLD with Airbus • MAGAZINE, Vinci takes Debenhams deal • Wates lands £24m housing maintenance deal • Spectrum Service Solutions secures Workman Retail deals JOIN BIFM • Ampersand to cater for the British Medical Association • CAM lands Here East FM deal

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V I E W P O I NT PERSPECTIVES

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Why social value is a moral duty of care

We need to aim higher

JOSIE O’CONNOR is business and community investment manager at Vinci Facilities

DARRAN YATES is director at Incredible Window Cleaning, part of Indepth Managed Services

ocial value has become a term at risk of going from buzzword to boredom. The problem is perception. The immediate effect of the Social Value Act, which requires public sector organisations to think about the social value generated through buying services, was a shift in the procurement process.

Demonstrating social value is seen as a way of distinguishing yourself from the competition. But, sadly, too many people in facilities on the client and supply side see this act of differentiation as a tick-box exercise.

Embedded as an intrinsic element of a contract, social value can make a huge difference to local communities, no matter if the project is the refurbishment of a hospital, social housing or energy improvement initiative.

But it can also go further. Social value is not about meeting some procurement criteria in a tender. It is about making a sustainable difference to the communities affected by the services we provide. It is in effect a moral duty of care – it is about how one interprets the legal obligation and how far you go.

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fed poles, lightweight rope and cradles.

But methods and techniques that work today may not necessarily work tomorrow, unless we adapt our cleaning methods to the buildings. Instead of tackling the issue after a building is constructed, why don’t we build safety at height provisions into the design of the building from the start? If experienced window cleaners have a voice at the beginning of the design process, architects can encompass those and design a tall building that is safer to clean.

To some this may sound far-fetched. However, the process has already begun, thanks to the HSE’s ongoing engagement with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to improve designer risk management under te Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations, of which cleaning at height methods are a consideration.

There has been little more rigorous training and change to the designer role safety awareness, notably in CDM 2015, and there is still the Working at Height a duty to eliminate, reduce Regulations, as amended. or control risk in design to We’ve also seen technical ensure that a building can be innovations that make it built, maintained and used easier for window cleaners ill to reach awkward places, W Wfor W. B I F Msafely .O RGand .U Kwithout / F M WJcausing OIN health, as far as is practicable. example lighter tools, waterhe architectural landscape is continually changing. Thanks to ever more unique and challenging structures, we have more extreme tall buildings than ever before. Fortunately for us, this creative architectural trend demands the skills of accomplished window cleaners. But there is still a risk to window cleaners’ safety while cleaning at height.

Even though we have seen a gradual safety evolution relating to the methods we use when cleaning windows at height, there is always room for improvement. There have been changes that demand

We’ve been working with Barking & Dagenham College with the goal of improving the employment chances of local young people. We saw that school leavers joining

“OUR WORK WITH THE COLLEGE OVER THE YEARS HAS HELPED TO EQUIP THESE YOUNG ADULTS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST WORK” the business did not have some of the business or trade, let alone life skills to cope with employment in any organisation, not just an FM service provider.

Our work over the years has helped to equip these young adults for life, not just work. We deliver teaching, learning, mentoring and create projects to test their new practical skills.

This is about practical, pragmatic social value in action and also planning for the future as well. It involves tapping into the talent pool: enhancing it and nurturing it for the future. It is about sustainable social value.

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“WHY DON’T WE BUILD SAFETY AT HEIGHT PROVISIONS INTO THE DESIGN FROM THE START?”

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V I E W P O I NT

The procurement sig holds a number of events, and at One Great George Street (right) it showcased the NEC3 Terms Services Contract (TSC). The NEC3 TSC is supported by BIFM as good practice and the sig was given the Knowledge Volunteer Award this July for its work to enlighten members about their application.

OC TOBER@BIFM

G RO U P FO C U S – PROCUREMENT

Procurement Special Interest Group considers Brexit impact What’s happening in the world of procurement

There are two main hot topics at the moment: the impact of Brexit, particularly on public sector OJEU processes and the implementation of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It’s too soon to tell about the Brexit impact as this won’t become apparent until terms are negotiated, however, it is felt that the public sector will want to continue with the governance framework. The European aspects may not be necessary but the equality and fairness ethos will need to be retained, so this will be watched closely over the next few years.

The Modern Slavery Act is regularly being discussed as the ramifications to organisations are being felt. Procurement processes are being adapted to reflect the level of detail required by the buyer from the supplier to ensure compliance.

Other procurement topics that are still on the agenda are sustainable procurement, cloud-based procurement, e-invoicing, procure-to-pay and supplier/buyer collaboration and relationships. The use of technology is driving some of this, along with an organisation-wide focus on ethical behaviours and treating people fairly throughout the entire supply chain.

Group activities

The procurement sig recently set up a Twitter account (@BIFMProcurement) and LinkedIn Group (BIFM Procurement).

It will be developing these communication channels to engage with its members.

The sig is currently working on the following: Reviewing and updating the Good Practice Guide.

Preparing for a series of three trial webinars for BIFM. It is intended to launch the first one in November to support the refreshed Good Practice Guide.

Currently working through a recruitment process for three committee members to bring the sig up to a full complement of 12 committee members.

Working with the NEC to support development of the NEC3 TSC and TSSC.

Events

The sig is focusing on webinars to engage with its members and will also be supporting other regions and sigs with meetings over the next 12 months. The webinars will provide an opportunity for participants to ask questions regardless of which part of the world they come from. Any subjects that emerge from the webinars will be used to develop guidance notes or further webinars.

CONTACTS: Chair: Wendy Sutherland wendy@ramsaytodd.co.uk Deputy chair: Chris Jeffers Chris.Jeffers@capita.co.uk Treasurer: Nigel Morgan Nigel.Morgan@education.gsi.gov.uk Events and communications: Nicola Robinson nicola.robinson@cips.org fm-world.co.uk

New degreelevel apprentice standard in development BIFM is currently working with a group of employers to develop a degree apprenticeship standard.

It’s to be aimed at facilities management professinals who are working in senior management roles and responsible for the delivery of a variety of integrated FM services across multiple sites. It is also designed for supply-side FMs managing a portfolio of assets and services, nationally or regionally. These FMs will be responsible for controlling costs, managing client relationships, building the FM client base and business growth.

To ensure that the standard has the widest possible support and relevance across the sector we are seeking feedback from employers and other organisations who have not been involved in drafting the standard. The comments provided in the consultation will be fed back to the trailblazer group for reflection, and to build in any changes to the standard.

When it is prepared, the draft standard will be submitted to the Department for Education for approval and will be published on the Government website.

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K N OW H OW

C AREER DE VELOPMENT

F M AND IM P ROV

PLAY THE GAME

What can FM learn from improvised comedy? Jamie Harris sat down with comedian Neil Mullarkey to find out

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sit down with Neil over lunch, and it takes me a minute to notice that we’re immediately into our interview. The small talk has slipped seamlessly into discussing how a comedian, actor and improvisation specialist got into business coaching. Now is the time for me to adapt to my surroundings. And that is part of Mullarkey’s work: improving communications skills, having better and more effective conversations, and helping people to be more engaged in what they are doing and why they are doing it; it is all at the heart of Mullarkey’s process.

A graduate of Robinson College, Cambridge, and a former president of the Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club, Mullarkey

co-founded the improvisation group The Comedy Store Players with comedian Mike Myers in 1985. He has worked with some of the biggest names in British comedy and continues to perform at the Comedy Store in London. But he is also putting his comedic and improvisation skills to use in a corporate environment.

“When I first started this, around the turn of the century, I thought it would be just using improvisation to work on listening skills and better communication,” he says. “But much of what is picked up is about a change in mindset for dealing with problems.”

The majority of Mullarkey’s workshops are half-day or full-day sessions with groups from corporate organisations, tech start ups or retailers, although one-to-one coaching is also offered. He cites a broad spectrum of clients, including Balfour Beatty, the NHS, Unilever, Lloyds, KFC and KPMG. Says Mullarkey: “Their problems are uncannily similar, but the answers are always different one size fits nobody. It’s about listening actively, contributing together and acting intuitively but decisively.”

Breaking down barriers

“The first rule of improvisation is to really listen to what the other person has said,” says Mullarkey. “It’s not what you expect. It’s not just trying to think of funny things to say, you’re trying to create scenes, to create collaborative stories.

If I make my partner look good, I look good.”

Mullarkey says his workshops get people listening to each other, and collaborating to find creative ways to deal with a situation.

Much of what Mullarkey tries to coach is the idea of positive thought, particularly evident in a classic improv game, “yes,

and…” in which participants can only begin sentences with the aforementioned phrase.

Mullarkey gives the example of a scene where he is placed in a bathroom with no running water. Rather than seeing no way out, he must think creatively and use what tools he has available to him to find a solution.

By the end of his workshops, even the more introverted people are up on stage.

Mullarkey explains that they understand the value of playing the scene, and just by listening to each other, it makes it that much easier.

“I once worked with a client on a two-day workshop, where at the end of it they had to put on an improv show.”

Apprehension about taking part eventually dissipates, says Mullarkey, faster for some than others. He explains that top sports people tend to be very good at adapting to the circumstances they find themselves in, and that particular ability can help in a corporate environment as well.

“I’ve noticed that sports people will often throw themselves into an improvised situation. I once did some work with the GB women’s hockey team, and even though improvising scenes had no

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K N OW H OW

FIVE POINT PLAN

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here is no doubt about the aesthetic benefits of green walls. They can be appreciated by all those who come into contact with them and the benefits of maintaining such a link to nature are well documented.

As well as encouraging biodiversity – important in an increasingly urbanised world (see Facilitate, p. 58), external green walls also help to reduce pollution in the outside air. Evidence suggests that an external green wall can reduce noise inside a building by up to 15 decibels.

However, some people have reservations about installing a green wall, not least because of the common misconceptions about their needs and maintenance.

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Maintenance is an optional extra

The nature of any green wall system means continuing regular maintenance is the key to success. Maintenance technicians will constantly adjust irrigation timings to cater for changes in the weather and time of year. On each visit, the technician will also clean and prune back plants to each customer’s taste to ensure that the green wall looks fantastic.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAMY

Water feeds and drainage are necessary for interior walls

Reservoirs used for this purpose typically run along the entire width of the green wall and are approximately 300mm high x 300mm deep.

These hold all of the water needed for the system to

Many types of plants will tolerate the high life in a green wall, whether in sun or shade, to help transform urban landscapes

function between tri-weekly maintenance visits, when the technician will manually top up the reservoir.

Most of the water inside the reservoir will be used by the plants between each visit, so that fresh water is constantly available for new growth. All that is necessary for interior green walls is a 240V plug socket to power the integrated pump and USB controller unit.

3

G R E E N WA LL S

BURYING VERTICAL GARDEN MYTHS Green walls are aesthetically pleasing – but impossible to maintain? Not so, says the team at Enterprise Plants, which here details five common misconceptions

Irrigation systems require constant maintenance

Automated irrigation systems are typically fed with fertiliser that breaks down any limescale in the drippers to ensure that they are kept clean and continue to supply an even flow of water across the entire face of the wall.

4

Interior green walls can survive without supplementary lighting

Although an area may be suitably lit for general dayto-day duties, light levels are rarely sufficient for the planting to thrive. For this reason, it’s worth considering supplementary LED lighting.

5

A green wall is being constantly irrigated during the day

Initially the irrigation system will be set to come on for 15 minutes a day. After a couple of weeks, the technician will have balanced the system and should then be able to reduce the system’s running time to an average of 10 minutes a day, while setting the pump to run out of office hours.

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tinyurl.com/FMW1016-RHSwalls

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tinyurl.com/FMW1016-biophilia

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ENABLING PRODUC TIVE ENVIRONMENTS FOR PEOPLE AND BUSINESS

10TH ANNIVERSARY INSIGHT What the BIFM sustainability report tells us BEYOND GREEN How do you measure social sustainability?

BIGGER PICTURE The macro economic trends set to shape the future

Sustainable as standard

Fresh emphasis on social and economic dimensions is making TO ACCESS THE FULL sustainability increasingly VERSION OF FM important to business WORLD MAGAZINE,

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FAC I LITATE

10 Y E A R S O F B I F M S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y R EP O RT I N G

t the launch of BIFM’s 10th annual sustainability survey report, co-author and consultant Greg Davies asked his audience to consider just how much the field of sustainability has developed since the first such survey back in 2007.

After a few quick cultural references (Rhianna was No.1 with Umbrella, the iPhone only just on sale) it became clear just how much we’ve lived through since then. Changes in government, short-lived environmental initiatives and policy mis-steps such as the green deal on one side; a cultural revolution in terms of understanding on the other. What organisations think about sustainability has certainly changed, even if thorny issues of implementation and responsibility remain unresolved.

Breaking from its straight annual analysis of the year’s survey results, this year’s report also looked back at how sustainability in FM has evolved over the past 10 years, and forward to likely developments in the decade ahead.

In truth, the big issues of 2007 – waste compliance, carbon reduction, energy and water management – all remain the big issues of 2016. And at its heart, sustainability, for many, remains little more than a compliance-driven bolt-on.

And yet, in so many other ways, the role and effect of productivity has changed profoundly. It has evolved from a straightforward focus on what we should now call environmental sustainability, with its myriad empirical measures of progress regarding reductions in fuel consumption, emissions or waste to landfill, to a focus on all three of the accepted pillars of sustainability, with its environmental core now joined by social and economic components to add fresh dynamism to the debate.

Interest in the social side of sustainability has as its trigger the Public Services Social Value Act (2012), with its obligation on public sector commissioners to consider the impact of any service procurement decision on the organisation’s employment, for example, of local workers in general or its ‘outreach’ to local social enterprises to fulfil facilities service roles.

Government, having lit the blue touch paper of legislation, has stood well

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back when it comes to providing any further models for the market to follow.

Understandable, perhaps – but how to measure social sustainability is a major problem for organisations and FM service contractors, all coming at the problem from their own starting positions. Wider sector advice may yet be forthcoming, and indeed BIFM sustainability sig chair Sunil Shah hopes that his group will be able to offer something in due course.

It’s not going to be easy, though. As well as being so broad in scope that standard metrics templates have evaded the FM service providers who have tried, social sustainability is still seen as less important than environmental performance, the latter’s ability to be measured tying it more readily to financial performance.

But when you talk to the service providers, you find that the Social Value Act is gaining traction as part of a wider sustainability ‘value equation’ – one that is not confined to the public sector.

“We are seeing the debate around social value starting to resonate with commercial organisations as well,” says Interserve’s Bruce Melizan.

The support that FM services providers give in driving skills and employment is becoming an increasingly important part of the outsourcing value equation, be it in the form of apprenticeships, NVQs

MAKING MORE OF DATA

From next year, BIFM’s sustainability sig aims to improve the value of its sustainability research programme by moving from annualised reporting to longer-term research activity conducted over a multi-year span.

Limited quality and quantity of data compromises the sector’s ability to engage with government, Shah believes. “When government wants to talk about how buildings perform, they talk to architects and engineering consultants rather than the FM profession.”

Making stronger links between existing data, and evaluating how fresh data is collected and collated, is key.

The sustainability sig hopes to have an open-access information portal and longerterm research programme to focus on developing both environmental and social sustainability metrics. The challenge, believes Shah, is to produce better and more shareable data. The sustainability sig will be looking for W W W. B I F M .O RG .U K / F M WJ O I N organisations to support its programme.

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FAC I LITATE

F U T U R E FAC TO R S

Living for the City Our planet is urbanising at a breathtaking rate, with 70 per cent of the world’s population set to be living in a city by the year 2050.

How sustainability is approached from a city-wide perspective is thus of ever increasing importance.

Martin Read looks at developments likely to impact FM in due course

Arup’s vision of a green envelope world is one in which natural and built environments co-exist

his month, delegates from across the world will attend the United Nations Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador to grapple with what ‘the city’ means, and what cities should become in a rapidly urbanising world. Delegates will attempt to devise a ‘New Urban Agenda’, a programme of principles for future sustainable urban development.

Now, on the face of it this may not sound much of an issue for all those facilities managers dealing principally in the existing built environment rather than the built environment yet to come. But factor in the steady shift in government policy towards a better awareness of life cycle cost, as well as a greater understanding of the wider reach of sustainability through its ever deepening economic and social dimensions, and Habitat III becomes important as an event

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likely to influence how cities and the organisations situated within them are managed in years to come.

It’s no surprise that Habitat conferences do not feature on most FMs’ radars, taking place as they do just once every twenty years. And in the past they have typically emphasised the problems associated with human settlements in developing countries. Habitat III, however, is markedly different because it is intended to generate ideas applicable as much to developed countries as those still developing.

Sustainable Development Goals

Originally proposed at the UN Rio+20 summit in 2012 and agreed by UN member states in 2015, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are perceived to be wide-ranging and ambitious. Most relate to escalating urbanisation, with SDG 11 in particular dedicated to “making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

When the last UN Habitat conference was held 20 years ago, sustainability as a topic barely registered. The world has changed significantly since then, in particular with the speed of urbanisation in the continents of Africa and Asia, and the explosion in information sharing mechanisms (for Habitat II back in 1996, W W W. B I F M .O RG .U K / F M WJ O I N email was in its infancy and the potential

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