Energy
In 2008 we continued to work with The Carbon Trust to evolve a broad carbon management strategy. Our staff are now acting on the findings of these audits, and the outcomes of our carbon footprint exercise, to develop a group-wide focused and coordinated effort to reduce our CO2 emissions in the longer term.
We continue to work to enhance our systems to enable us to identify and take advantage of opportunities to further improve energy efficiencies throughout our investment properties, where this is within our control. We have introduced best practice taking account of both the short and long-term benefits to the operational costs of our business.
As the portfolios of our shopping centres and commercial properties change each year, it is unlikely that total consumption will ever be strictly comparable. The relatively high turnover of properties and variations in occupation patterns in the C&C business means that drawing meaningful like-for-like comparisons remains difficult. We do, however, consider both absolute and normalised figures for the environmental performance of our shopping centres.
Shopping Centres
We have continued to improve the quality of our energy consumption data over the last year. During 2008, we concentrated on ensuring the completeness and accuracy of our data to give us greater certainty in our reported carbon emissions ready for the introduction of the government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment, due to be implemented in April 2010.
The carbon emissions factors that we have used are unchanged since the 2007 report and remain fully consistent with Defra’s guidelines on greenhouse gas reporting.
The total energy use in our 12 centres over 2008 was 134.2 million kWh; a 2% decrease from the 137.4 million kWh used by these centres in 2007. A further like-for-like breakdown of energy use over the past five years is provided by the tables below, which show the breakdown of 2008 energy use and CO2 emissions for our Centres (including those which we do not directly manage). The conversion factors used to calculate CO2 equivalent are those set by Defra reflecting the UK energy generating mix.
Our centres utilise half hourly energy metering software to monitor energy use and target areas and times of excessive use through effective management control, and will use the outcomes of our carbon footprint study to raise awareness of what staff and retailers can do as an individual to minimise energy use. We seek to integrate energy efficient and low carbon features, such as natural ventilation, into our new developments from the outset in an effort to minimise energy use across the lifetime of a development. We hope to further encourage our retailers to fit out their units in a way that compliments our energy management strategy in future.
| Centre | Electricity kWh | District heating kWh | Gas kWh | Total CO2 associated with energy use (kg) |
| Arndale | 9,551,911 | 13,856,495 | 7,599,728 | |
| Braehead (+ Arena) |
11,604,707 | 4,882,222 | 6,962,070 | |
| Chapelfield | 4,079,070 | 943,403 | 2,300,363 | |
| Chimes | 3,732,200 | 1,145,477 | 2,158,385 | |
| Cribbs | 4,975,077 | 998,207 | 2,776,699 | |
| Eldon Square | 7,716,122 | 15,563,703 | 6,969,487 | |
| Glades | 5,230,512 | 480,959 | 2,811,248 | |
| Harlequin | 10,531,677 | 1,046,292 | 5,675,268 | |
| Lakeside | 12,716,985 | 3,640,099 | 7,304,451 | |
| Metrocentre | 8,123,619 | 1,393,956 | 4,489,134 | |
| Potteries | 1,882,655 | 118,091 | 1,001,418 | |
| Victoria Centre | 8,448,519 | 1,503,560 | 0 | 4,552,758 |
| Totals | 88,593,054 | 1,503,560 | 44,068,904 | 54,601,009 |
Commercial Properties and USA
We have recently incorporated a number of London properties into the ‘Great Capital Partnership’, a joint venture with Great Portland Estates. The inclusion of a number of our properties into this venture results in the remaining commercial estate being significantly smaller in size than in 2006. The common parts of our remaining estate consumed 13.9 million kWh (2007 – 22.2 million kWh) of energy. The reduction being principally due to sales and shutting down of properties for redevelopment.
Our commercial and retail properties in the USA represent around 4% of our total activities. In 2008 our US sites consumed 18.1m kWh electricity, 4.4m kWh gas and 264,650 m3 of water, corresponding to a 1% decrease in electricity, a 63% increase in gas consumption and a 15% decrease in water usage.
It remains difficult to quantify waste volumes in the USA, but we continue to explore ways of monitoring and consolidating this data more effectively.
