Through the Better Buildings Partnership and Green500, we are helping London’s major businesses to improve the sustainability of their buildings and business operations.

The commercial sector generates a third of London's CO₂ emissions – there is significant potential here to deliver CO₂ savings.

Green500 was set up to support and reward London businesses who want to reduce their CO₂ emissions by helping them identify measures where the most effective CO₂ and cost savings can be made, and then go on to help them implement these measures.

In tandem with Green500, the Better Building Partnership programme was also set up, aimed at the largest commercial property owners to develop specific sustainability solutions for the sector, such as template green leases and guidance on carbon benchmarking for properties and property portfolios.

Green500

Over the past two years, the Green500 (external website) has been motivating and supporting organisations to reduce the environmental impact and CO₂ footprint of their business operations, putting London at the forefront of global environmental action.

Green500 provides a carbon mentoring service and recognition scheme for big businesses and public sector organisations in London.

The programme offers a structured carbon mentoring scheme providing expert help and advice on reducing participants' carbon footprint.

Each Green500 member receives an assessment of their London carbon footprint by a designated carbon mentor, followed by an individual Action Plan tailored to each company's specific carbon needs. This provides estimated cost and carbon savings for energy, waste, water, and transport, as well as information on an expected payback period for each action successfully implemented.

Participants come from across the private and public sector, including finance, retail, insurance, legal, telecoms, entertainment, real estate, local authorities, hospitals. They include well-known organisations such as Marks & Spencer, the Natural History Museum, Chelsea Football Club and the O2 arena.

The project aims to reduce CO₂ emissions from London's businesses by 1.1million tonnes counting over three years.

Every year, the best of the best are picked by independent auditors and winners are awarded one of five badges at a ceremony hosted by the Mayor of London.

Better Buildings Partnership

The Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) (external website) is a collaboration between London’s leading commercial property owners and allied organisations, supported by the Mayor of London and the LDA.

The BBP develops solutions to improve the sustainability of London’s existing commercial buildings and achieve substantial CO₂ savings in support of the Mayor’s target of 60% by 2025. The BBP’s Green Lease Toolkit, published in April 2009, has been received extremely well by the market. The BBP are also working on toolkits for sustainable benchmarking, the role of property agents in sustainability and commercial models for retrofit.

The BBP was launched in 2007 with participation from British Land Company, Grosvenor, Hammerson, Hermes, Land Securities, Transport for London and the LDA, and has since been joined by Legal and General, Canary Wharf, Quintain, GE Real Estate, Workspace Group, The Blackstone Group and Prupim, part of the Prudential Group.