BE.Spoke
About Be.Spoke
BE.Spoke is a provider of tailor-made workspaces. Its parent company, BE Offices, is one of the largest UK independent, flexible workspace specialists. The firm initiated their sustainability journey in 2009, through the creation of its Green Group, an in-house team formed to measure the environmental impact of the firms' processes and make them greener.
According to Julie Tucker, PR and corporate social responsibility manager at BE Offices, their decision to apply to the Business Climate Challenge (BCC) and contribute to London’s net zero by 2030 target was a no-brainer. The opportunity to get tailored support from experts to decarbonise their business and reduce energy costs motivated them to join.
Actions
The firm has started implementing energy conservation measures from their BCC report to operate their workspace more efficiently. The BCC audit showed that the company's heating and ventilation system did not operate on a schedule, requiring someone to manually switch it on and off again, thereby consuming unnecessary energy. BE.Spoke adjusted the system controls to run only during office hours. Implementing this low-cost action could reduce their energy consumption by up to 28 per cent and save them £4,000 a year.
The top three energy efficiency recommendations for action for BE were:
1. Adopt and encourage staff/user sustainable energy practices.
2. Install BMS / Adjust building management controls.
3. Install intelligent lighting controls.
For BE.Spoke, implementing recommended actions increases their workspaces' value-added and competitiveness in the market. They can provide a better service to their clients as their building operates more efficiently. From a brand perspective, green spaces offer a creative way to market their offices. Internally, they also see the benefit of the Challenge to attract talent. As Julie highlighted, 75 per cent of millennials say they want to work for a company committed to sustainability actions.
Julie Tucker from BE.Spoke says:
Not only is this responsible business practice, it's about future-proofing our business; we know that if we do not act now, we will start to see the negative effect of inaction very soon
Recommendations for other businesses
What recommendations would you give to other businesses in their path to lower their carbon emissions?
Ashley Hughes, Management Surveyor, BE Offices, says:
I would suggest nurturing staff and talent and opening the environmental discussion to as many stakeholders as possible. It’s totally unrealistic for one person or department to be tasked with lowering carbon emissions, for us it’s a team effort and I imagine that’s the case for lots of businesses.
Next steps
BE Offices valued the tailored technical support of the Challenge as it provides an opportunity to apply the learnings from the audit process to the rest of their workspaces. The firm has ambitious sustainability plans and wants to take the BCC further. They are looking to expand the implementation of energy efficiency measures to all twenty of BE’s workspaces. Furthermore, they are addressing their supply chain emissions by developing sustainable procurement policies that ensure suppliers are not high emitters. The Mayor's net-zero by 2030 target includes these emissions, and the firm wants to take action anticipating potential changes in regulations.
The knowledge-sharing opportunity of the Challenge has been one of the highlights of the programme for BE and they want to support other businesses to realise their climate action plans. Many of their clients are small businesses and do not know where to start their journey to become more energy efficient. Thus, BE's learnings will have positive spill-overs on adjacent organisations.
In order to tackle climate change, we will not be able to act alone and need to support and learn from each other's experience in decarbonising our buildings.