Z is for...

Zzzzzzz…..

And so, as this series of blog posts for the challenge ends, time for a final, brief reflection on the exercise.

This has proven to be both stimulating and, living up to its name, challenging.  The topics, the scope, the timing, the depth of the posts all considerations serving to examine the opportunity a well as the style.

Well, normal service will be resumed from May and we will continue to report on news and views from the commercial property world.

We hope you have enjoyed our blog.

Y is for...

You can get in touch at any time:

James Alexander Consultants are keen to help you with your property, real estate and asset management challenges.  Please get in touch to see where we can add value to your business.

020 8948 4242

07768 255283

innovation@jaltd.co.uk

www.jaltd.co.uk

@jaltdproperty

X is for...

Xenium:

Which is, as we all know, a gift or present given to a visitor and we hope you will have found something in these posts that has entertained, engaged or informed you.

W is for...

We’re nearly at the end of the A to Z Challenge: 

After nearly a month the blogging

challenge draws

towards a conclusion.

V is for...

Valuations:

The valuation of a property is usually directly related to its market value and this is where the art, some would say dark art, of the valuation comes into its own.  The purpose of a valuation will have a direct influence on its outcome and therefore has to be specific to the requirement.

Valuations may be undertaken for many purposes including:

• Mortgage finance -
• Acquisition
• Sale
• Probate
• Litigation
• Leasehold Enfranchisement
• Property development
• loan security valuations
• asset and fund valuations
• valuations for accounts purposes
• retrospective valuations
• development appraisals
• valuations for corporate owners and occupiers. 

and more……

As with any subjective view of a situation, in this instance the market value of an asset, there exists the opportunity for dipute and disagreement.  In any situation whereby someone is seeking to prove a value, another party will be seeking to disprove it.  It is therefore vital that not only do you commission the correct valuation for the correct purpose but also that you commission it from a surveyor with relevant and in depth experience.

James Alexander Consultants can help you determine the best approach to valuations of your asset base and get the right surveying team in place.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

U is for...

Utilisation:

Utilisation of your space, that is.  Efficient space utilisation within an organisation can have a number of positive knock on effects.  There are the more obvious ones, those promoting operational efficiency and production and also those relating to staff wellbeing and personal growth.

The most radical change in the office based working environment in recent years has been the shift from individual working to collaborative working.  The practice of colleagues coming together to work for parts of the day in formal or informal work groups, far beyond the understanding of “meetings” has been on the rise.

Responding to this by addressing the look and feel of the office workplace has been a key step forward in both the promotion of the new styles of working and also the opportunity to contain and possibly reduce the cost base for the business.

Utilisation improvements can be brought about by the application of a number of techniques and principles, all designed to improve take up and application of spatial usage.

• Footprint:  keeping in mind the essential means of escape routes consider whether the personal footprint could be reduced.  It is recommended that 11m³ per person is achieved, but the reduction of the furniture footprint (smaller workstations) is one way which could help. 

• Working away from the Office:  technological development now means that providing essential staff with the means for mobile communication is within reach of all organisations. This does not work for all job functions and should not be taken as a wholesale opportunity to close the office, but those who are out of the office more than they are in do not, generally, need workstations.

• Technology: developments also mean that less equipment is required to provide desk top solutions for staff, coupled to a reduction in workstation size leads to smaller footprint.  Printing and photocopying devices are now available with much smarter interfaces and options.

• Maximise: have you ever wondered why the meeting and conference rooms are empty for most of the time?  Rethink the strategy and maximise usage, software packages exist to help with this.

• Open Plan:  it’s not new to suggest going down the open plan route, but think about doing away with personal offices.  Research has shown that by careful space planning, suitable provision of meeting rooms, spaces and break out areas the need for personal offices is significantly diminished.

James Alexander Consultants can help you find your way through to the best solution to your accommodation needs.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

T is for...

The Challenge:

I thought I would write a brief post regarding the A t Z Challenge today.  What started out as a good idea and a bit of fun has turned out to be more challenging than I imagined and the time required to undertake it more demanding.

The A to Z Blogging Challenge started in 2010, setting a challenge to all Bloggers to, for the month of April, post every day except Sundays during the month, Blogging on a themed topic from A to Z.  26 letters, 26 days.  There are over 1,700 signed up officially to the challenge along with, I suspect, many others like me who are participating from the sidelines.

It has certainly not always been easy to keep the schedule up and there have been the odd days where a letter may have slipped, to be caught up later. The time pressure has also meant an interesting internal conversation regarding that which has to be written, but all in all a very interesting exercise and, I can now see why it is so named, challenge!

With 6 letters left, including several tricky ones, the challenge is still on. 

S is for...

Social Media:

Social Media will continue to be big news in 2012.  As more people get to grips with their online presence and more businesses realise the potential for a new string to their marketing bow the battle for dominance in the social media marketplace will heighten.

There are over 200 social media platforms in existence and their individual customer bases are hard fought and hard won.  Many business professionals use LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) to profile themselves, their experience and expertise as well as that of their businesses.  LinkedIn is sometimes referred to as the “FaceBook for business” which is a point of view, not necessarily one I would subscribe to, but it certainly has similar aims and allows users to have a similar experience.  With over 10 million users, (I don't know how many property professionals are on!) it is certainly worth considering your usage of this medium.

Many come to LinkedIn from a fairly low start point in terms of familiarity with social media, and “tweaking” the application and your profile can make all the difference to your experience.  Here are my top 5 tips for improving your profile:

1.     Profile picture: no matter how camera shy you may be, having your picture on your profile does make all the difference!  It should be appropriate to what you do and should also reflect who you are and, who you are now.  A 20 year old photo of you might look good and be your personal favourite, but isn’t going to hit the spot when someone meets you face to face!

2.     Connection strategy: A tough one! Some people take the view that more is better, some becoming a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) connecting with as many people as possible (some have 1,000s of connections) with a view that, at some point in the future there may be a useful contact in there somewhere.  Bit of a needle in a haystack approach.  Others prefer to make solid contacts with people they have met, already know have been recommended to or by and build a smaller base of known connections.  It comes down to personal preference, but leveraging your connection base is a key LinkedIn functionality.

3.     Testimonials: A key descriptor of your worth to potential clients is the strength of testimonials on your profile.  You can ask for these, either specifically or reciprocally, and the way you approach this is dependant upon your relationship with the individual.

4.     Headline: Your headline is the first thing that a potential client, contact or referrer will see.  LinkedIn will automatically default to your last job title, which might be fine, but does that say what you would want to say about yourself?  A concise strapline describing your skills and attributes would be far better.

5.     Public Profile: LinkedIn sets an automatic name for your public profile, usually a less than helpful one!  Using your Profile Edit section you can replace this with one that more accurately reflects your name.  I reset mine to http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulwyoungman

Feel free to get in touch for further thoughts and advice on this or any of our other Blog topics.

R is for...

Relocation:

Back on firmer ground, well at least we have a topic, phew!

Moving the business to new location or locations is a process best undertaken with a great deal of planning and forethought.  Commercial relocation is so much more than moving your house, its obvious isn’t it, but you would be surprised how many organisations approach this activity full of confidence due to someone having moved their own home last year, only to fail in spectacular fashion, costing the business dearly.

Here are my top 5 tips for your relocation project:

• Team:  Pull together your in house and professional team early on.  The fundamental requirement for the project team is to have delegated authority to make project decisions.  You will undoubtedly have a project Board with the overall Company authority, but the ability for the Project team to act within bounds is paramount. 

• Programme & Timing:  Your relocation project will almost certainly culminate in one or more moves over a series of weekends or a holiday period.  Planning for your project can start at either end of the scale.  Either working back from a mission critical end date, perhaps the expiration of the existing lease period, or working from the start, based on the longest lead time elements and the date you determine to launch the project.  Either way you cannot start the overall planning too soon.  Informal planning will have been taking place for some while but this needs to be pulled together at the earliest opportunity so that all aspects can be captured and detailed.

• Communication:  Early on in the project you will need to determine your communication strategy with staff and stakeholders.  As a source of rumour and misinformation, there are few better catalysts than a relocation project to stoke the fires!  Planning and implementing an integrated communication plan will greatly assist the project, both in terms of staff satisfaction and also in terms of buy in and co-operation.

• IT and Communications:  Make sure your IT and communications teams are fully engaged from the start.  We have seen projects that have started off in fine form, bringing the communications teams in at a later date, only to find there are practical technical matters that have been overlooked and the project suffers delays and cost overruns.

• Have a clear out!:  Develop time in the programme to encourage staff to have a good clear out of filing cabinets, old machinery, cupboards, loose boxes, equipment, records, files, obsolete bits and bobs and the many other things that will cost money to move, cost money to house and then cost money to move next time!  There will be opportunities to recycle, sell, donate, dispose and, in the process, contribute to the organisations corporate social responsibility agenda.

James Alexander Consultants can help you with your relocation project.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

Q is for...

Q….what is Q for

Well, I have really struggled with this one.  I was going to write something about Quarter days, but do you know what…..exactly.

I thought I could weave something about quantitative easing, but it took too long to find out how to spell quantitatiive.

The opportunity for  whole post on Q has just passed my creative juices by, so I am going to save us all a lot of trouble and just move right along to……

P is for...

Planning & Strategy:

Occupying business premises is no laughing matter.  The costs involved can be significant and the penalties, should you get it wrong, can be severe.

Having said that, the opportunity for it to go well is significant!  Like all property transactions in the UK (well England and Wales anyway!) the pace of movement is usually somewhere akin to that of the proverbial snail.  Lease break clauses do (should) not usually sneak up on you, they are telegraphed well ahead of time (when the lease is signed?).  So the opportunities for you to plan aspects of your estates strategy are easily able to be recognised and addressed.  However, that is not the whole picture.  Not all elements are so easily planned.  As we have said many times before, the real estate only exists to support your core activity, it’s there to help you to produce your widgets or build your social media empire or whatever.

And (yes, you can start a sentence with and) that’s where the challenge comes.

Planning a strategy to match your real estate occupancy to your business’s operational requirements is not too difficult in principle, but will throw up some very challenging questions to you and your colleagues.  I was with a client recently and the discussion revolved around the business’s requirement to relocate to larger operating premises, the availability, or lack of, suitable prospects in the locality and the impact a more significant geographical move to achieve the right accommodation could have on the business in terms of the potential for the loss of key staff.  An interesting conundrum and one that the jury is still out on.

Size, location, mix, usage and cost will all play a part in developing a coherent strategy for real estate and the activity should be undertaken with the same thoroughness that is applied to the operational aspects of the business.

James Alexander Consultants can help you find your way through to the best solution to your accommodation needs.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

O is for...

Outsourcing:

Non core activities outsourced, not a news topic you may say, but how far does this extend within your organisation?  The opportunity to outsource these types of non core activity has increased in recent times.  You are probably familiar with the “run of the mill” in outsourcing, from catering to waste management, office supplies to ICT.  But what about the outsourcing of your HR activity?  Or payroll?

The opportunity to bring in specialist services without the requirement to employ these on a full time basis is one of the backbones of the outsourcing principle.  Another is the opportunity to access specialist advice on non core activity, advice which would otherwise be expensive to maintain on an in-house basis.

The increase in legislation surrounding employment has seen a rise in the opportunity for SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises) to bring in specialist consultants and providers to keep them on the right side of employment law and up to date with current staffing requirements.

Similarly, there are opportunities for occupiers to get help with their accommodation and real estate services.  Many larger occupiers will have provision in place, but the smaller occupier can seek support with real estate related issues too.  From the outsourcing of facilities management to landlord and tenant issues there are opportunities to seek professional support in ensuring your organisation is fully up to speed.

James Alexander Consultants can help you understand your property, facilities and compliance requirements, leaving you to focus on core activity and opportunity.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

N is for...

New Working Practices:

We may have said this before, but after staff costs, the cost of the occupied estate is the next biggest expense for any organisation.

The adoption of new working practices can provide organisations with the opportunity to reduce space related overheads, as well as provide staff with options on how their work life is organised.  The opportunities to reduce the cost overhead involved in accommodation for operations are many and varied.  Their suitability for deployment is, amongst other things, dependent upon the individual circumstances of each organisation, these are not one size fits all solutions.

• Footprint:  keeping in mind the essential means of escape routes consider whether the personal footprint could be reduced.  It is recommended that 11m³ per person is achieved, but the reduction of the furniture footprint (smaller workstations) is one way which could help. 

• Working away from the Office:  technological development now means that providing essential staff with the means for mobile communication is within reach of all organisations. This does not work for all job functions and should not be taken as a wholesale opportunity to close the office, but those who are out of the office more than they are in do not, generally, need workstations.

• Technology: developments also mean that less equipment is required to provide desk top solutions for staff, coupled to a reduction in workstation size leads to smaller footprint.  Printing and photocopying devices are now available with much smarter interfaces and options.

• Maximise: have you ever wondered why the meeting and conference rooms are empty for most of the time?  Rethink the strategy and maximise usage, software packages exist to help with this.

• Open Plan:  it’s not new to suggest going down the open plan route, but think about doing away with personal offices.  Research has shown that by careful space planning, suitable provision of meeting rooms, spaces and break out areas the need for personal offices is significantly diminished.

James Alexander Consultants can help you find your way through to the best solution to your accommodation needs.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

M is for...

Management:

A quick thought or two on a Saturday.  A recent conversation with a former client made me consider that although owners or occupiers of large real estate portfolios will probably have a contracted resource to help with elements of the management of that estate, will it necessarily be the right resource?

The management of a large mixed usage asset portfolio, for instance, will present the owner/occupier with a number of challenges in the management and running of that estate and buying in services to help with that undoubtedly has the potential to assist greatly.  This will only be the case if the resource contracted has specific knowledge of the requirement.  A management company primarily used to dealing with urban and office environment will not necessarily be as used to dealing with the land agent and agricultural role.

Have a think about who is managing your activities and consider whether there are areas that could see improvement.

L is for...

Leasehold:

The occupation of commercial business premises by means of a lease from a private landlord or an institutional lease from a pension fund or similar is a well tried and tested method of getting the real estate you need to undertake your core business activities.

In recent years there has been a movement in the manner in which there leases have come to be drafted with, arguably, more flexibility being driven into the process by market demands.  The days of institutional leases of 25 years, with no breaks and upwards only rent reviews as the norm are probably no more, with the legacy if these practices of the 1980’s and early 1990’s hanging around for a few more years to come.

For most large organisations, the acquisition of new commercial property by this means is a well trodden path which holds no concerns or fears.  For those less experienced, here are my top 5 tips when considering this undertaking:

• Term:  The term of any lease and the potential for breaks (which must be able to be exercised by either party, not just the landlord) in that lease, must align with your organisational business plan over the medium to long term.

• Demise:  Make sure you are clear on what is included and what is excluded in the demise you are considering.  Favourites for unintended inclusion and exclusion are toilets and lifts (elevators for those in the US).  Both of these carry the potential for considerable maintenance and upgrade costs, make sure you know what else you are getting in your square footage!

• Total Costs:  As well as your rent, don’t forget that there will be other costs associated with taking over leasehold space.  Business rates are a given, and can be a significant expenditure item and also make sure you understand what service charge your landlord is proposing to levy and what you get for it.  There may be others too, some landlord are providing other services on an opt in basis, make sure you tick the opt out box if you are not going to use them.

• Legal:  Commercial leases are significant, weighty and binding documents.  Ensure that you have sought, and importantly listened to, professional advice about the lease you are about to enter into.  It is essential that the lawyer that acts for you is a specialist in the field and knows their way around the clauses that will be buried somewhere in the lease, ready to pop up at an inopportune time to cause you problems.

• Alterations, changes and dilapidations:  You have you new lease in place, you may even be enjoying a rent free period to fit it out to your requirements.  Make sure you know whether you need your landlords permission for those works, any subsequent changes, what process that permission will require to achieve and what your liabilities are in respect of dilapidations at the end of the lease.

James Alexander Consultants can help you find your way through to the best solution to your accommodation needs.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

K is for...

Key Performance Indicators:

In today’s business and commercial world the monitoring and measuring of activity becomes ever more relevant in establishing agreed levels and quality of service delivery, related costs and value for money, and the continuing relevance of the delivery, specification and quality.

A long established manner of enabling this is to establish key performance indicators (KPIs).  KPIs are primarily used by organisations to evaluate their success or the success of a specific activity in which it is engaged.  Choosing the right KPI, by understanding what is important to the organisation and determining what therefore will enable relevant assessment to be made is fundamental to the process.  Assessment and analysis of the results can lead to the development of improvements to process and procedure, potentially to cost saving and initiatives to develop other performance improvements.

KPIs in the property and construction industries have been developed for many applications.  In the construction industry annual assessment of a wide range of standard KPIs has taken place for over 10 years.  These indicators are published in the annual UK Industry Performance Report.  The indicators are wide ranging through subjects as diverse as economic, safety and environmental impact and are designed to enable the improvement of performance, as well as the ability of companies to benchmark their individual company performance against industry standards.

The Building Research Establishment (BRE) has a number of programmes in the application of excellence in construction, refurbishment and improvement of the built environment, each designed to monitor, manage and improve performance in the application.  These programmes are effectively a form of KPI, enabling the standard of development and build quality to be measured against required guidelines.  Their programme BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) provides a comprehensive set of parameters against which the built estate can be measured for the development’s potential impact against environmental and sustainable criteria with differing levels of award able to be achieved.

Combined with benchmarking exercises, KPIs  allow for organisations to assess their own internal performance criteria and also rate that against competitors and the market, the results, hopefully being for continuous performance improvement and achieving better value for money.

James Alexander Consultants can help you identify areas of performance improvement in your asset management and portfolio.  We develop, plan and implement the strategy, leaving you to focus on core activity and opportunity.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

J is for...

Jokes:

OK, so I’m a bit behind, but then looking at the AtoZchallenge twitter feed (@aprilatoz) there seems to be a bit of disagreement as to what letter day it is today anyway!!

So, I think that yesterday, 11^th,  was J day and today, 12^th, is K day.  Well, whatever it is I’m behind so today for a bit of light relief on J day today’s post is a vaguely property related and, I hope, amusing scene:

These workmen are installing bollards to stop nurses from parking on the pavement outside the Royal Hospital in Belfast . 

They are cleaning up at the end of the day. 

How long do you think it will be before they realise that they can't go home?

With thanks to Neil at www.clubmotorhome.co.uk

I is for...

Innovation:

Changing times call for ever more thoughtful approaches to your asset management challenges.  The current marketplace within commercial property is even more volatile than usual, and, whilst geography plays its part, the general view of the marketplace is that conditions are hard and likely to be so for the forthcoming time.

Spending time in careful consideration of the challenge this places on your business with regard to your built assets and liabilities is therefore well worth it.  In a previous post we have talked about the place within your business the build estate holds and the opportunity for the review and assessment of the estate in the light of this.

Detailed knowledge of your real estate liabilities will enable you to clearly plan ahead and, in conjunction with you business requirements, determine whether there are any opportunities to do things differently.

There may be scope to reorganise finances through the asset and balance sheet, to renegotiate terms with your landlord or reorganise loans on freehold occupancy.  Assessment of the utilised estate and how it could be improved, could allow for sub-letting (should the terms of the lease allow).  Group companies can potentially co-locate to reduce costs and vacating premises can save costs, even if the lease is still in force, with running and occupancy costs reduced to near nil and the potential for rates relief.

James Alexander Consultants are expert in assessing your portfolio and, with you, determining a strategy to develop the correct balance of assets, their relevance and performance for you.  We develop, plan and implement the strategy, leaving you to focus on core activity and opportunity.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

H is for...

Happy Easter!!

No great ponderings today (if there have been any!) just a wish for a Happy Easter to you all.

I hope you have enjoyed the holiday.

G is for...

Growth:

A few brief thoughts today on how your real estate supports your organisation in times of growth.

The key word in the previous sentence is the word support.  It was once commented that a £100,000 building will house £1,000,000 worth of equipment that will produce £100,000,000 worth of product.  The message being, that without the £100,000 shed the production is not going to happen.  In themselves the built assets do not form part of the core activities of you r business, but without them, or with the wrong assets, the business is not going to function in the correct way.

So, where is your £100,000 shed?  Is it the right size & shape, is it adaptable and flexible for your needs and, most importantly is it going to keep up with the business development that you have planned?

Regular review and assessment of the facilities you occupy will help you determine whether this is the case:

• Can developing new working practices and work patterns help with your business growth?
• Can your site accommodate new temporary buildings to address immediate requirements for additional accommodation?
• Do lease restrictions mean that your current facility will not, over time, be suitable for your purposes and is now the right time to plan to move?
• Will new compliance regulations in your business or industry mean that refurbishment is required?  Will this prove to be prohibitively expensive in the current location?

 You will be aware that property related transactions do not move too quickly and, sometimes, not too smoothly either.  Planning well ahead for your businesses operational real estate requirements will be key in achieving success.

James Alexander Consultants are expert in assessing your portfolio and, with you, determining a strategy to develop the correct balance of assets, their relevance and performance for you.  We develop, plan and implement the strategy, leaving you to focus on core activity and opportunity.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

F is for...

Facilities Management:

It’s not just about getting the toilets cleaned and making sure there are enough pencils in the stationery cupboard; the modern facilities management professional is regarded as a key member of the management team at any self respecting organisation.

In recent years, the value to an organisation of an efficient and well run facilities management provision has become recognised as a key component in the success of the organisation.  The role covers many elements that do not fall into most organisations core activity and thus, like the real estate remit, are often liable to be overlooked, until, that is, something goes wrong.

Trends in the field have changed over time.  Once, an Office Manager would have a department of staff who would, to greater or lesser effectiveness perform the tasks and activities required of the organisation.  In the 1990’s the dawning of the era of “Total Facilities Management” saw many of those in house teams, including the management, subsumed into the new style service providers, large organisations who were often no more than a collection of smaller service providers themselves.  This change did not quite hit the mark; whilst there were undoubted cost savings and some improvements in areas of efficiency the loss of the Management function and “ownership” proved to be an unsettling experience for some client organisations.  The perceived loss of control and an apparent impersonal aspect to the arrangements heralded the next era.  It would appear the solution is a mix of an in house management function which controls a contracted provision of services.  The age of the Facilities Manager as a contract manager is here.

Increasingly the FM is looking after a plethora of legislative compliance for the organisation, with environmental and sustainable aspects to the fore.  The range of compliance requirements in the workplace is vast and whilst some of the technical aspects are taken care of in their execution by contracted service providers, the FM has to be up to date and aware of what is required and what they need to be ensuring the organisation is covered against.

So, next time you visit the photocopier and press the button, remember not only the person who has filled the trays with paper, but also the person who has arranged for that to be done!

James Alexander Consultants are expert in assessing your facilities management requirements and, with you, determining a strategy to develop the correct balance of service.  We develop, plan and implement the strategy, leaving you to focus on core activity and opportunity.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.

E is for...

Environmental:

This A to Z Challenge is not an easy task, still…..!

Fittingly, as a hose pipe ban is imposed across many areas in the south of the country today and dire warning for the summer (?!) of impending drought like conditions, it is reasonable that our thoughts might turn to the environmental aspects of the built estate.

There are now numerous regulatory instruments requiring high standards in building design and construction, affecting the environmental and sustainable credentials of a building’s performance.  From the insulting capabilities of external walls and cladding to the type of heating ventilation and air conditioning system performance, the operational aspects of running a building are at the very top of the agenda when designing a new building.

Much of the built commercial estate in the UK dates from times before concerns over the impact on the environment of buildings were uppermost in any architects’ minds.  Design and aesthetics were the watchwords, although I think these may have become forgotten during parts of the 1960’s and through much if the last century this was the way in which buildings were conceived and constructed, with little thought to their impact on the environment.

The green agenda is well and truly to the fore and the Government is keen to maintain its planet saving credential by pushing more and more stringent measures onto the commercial and domestic markets for development and also some aspects of refurbishment.  Of course, all of these measures come at a cost which is borne, ultimately by the consumer.  The drive to become “green” has seen a worldwide movement to monitor, measure and assess commercial building performance and standards in design and construction.  The UK has the Building Research Establishment’s BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) system in place and a rating system is applied by an inspection and monitoring process for new building design.

James Alexander Consultants are expert in assessing your portfolio and, with you, determining a strategy to develop the correct balance of assets, their relevance and performance for you.  We develop, plan and implement the strategy, leaving you to focus on core activity and opportunity.

eMail us on innovation@jaltd.co.uk or see our contact page for our numbers.  We look forward to speaking with you.