Collaboration is at the heart of the ULI C Change programme and nowhere is this more important for decarbonisation of the built environment than bringing together owners and occupiers.  

While owners and occupiers often agree on ambitions to decarbonise, the nature of our fragmented industry means there can be misaligned priorities. This slows down progress in tackling emissions from occupied spaces.  

To achieve our aim of identifying opportunities to decarbonise occupier space, we established the ULI C Change Owner Occupier Community of Practice (OOCOP). We are now calling for industry experts to support us in the next phase of our work. 

The OOCOP began last year and has seen a group of experts from occupiers, owners and service providers collaborate to identify enquiry areas with potential for solutions that can reduce emissions at scale.  

A OOCOP helps achieve this through accelerated problem solving in a group setting.  By creating an open and trusted environment, learning and knowledge exchange starts to take place between members. The group begins to challenge current norms and starts to work towards emerging new solutions together. Building collective intelligence increases knowledge and improves creativity, innovation and creates greater impact than we can generate in silos. 

In year one, the Owner Occupier COP identified three enquiry areas: 

• The role of property managers: setting goals and objectives for property managers that align both owner and occupier needs. 

• Embodied carbon: representing the embodied carbon benefits of retrofit buildings to occupiers, alongside a focus on operational net zero buildings. 

• The power of the collective occupier voice: developing and leveraging occupier critical mass to create demand for change.  

Following a series of insightful workshops, we would now like to expand the OOCOP. We are looking for owners, occupiers and service providers to join the group and co-design game-changing solutions with peers.  

Over the next few months members will have the opportunity to contribute to regular meetings and workshops, take part in deep dive one-to-ones with our facilitators, and to design and test concepts and prototypes.  

The first enquiry area the OOCOP will examine is the role of the property manager. We began our deep dive into this topic at the ULI Europe Annual Conference in Milan, where workshop participants started to explore options and possibilities. As a lynchpin between owners and occupiers, we discussed the potential for the property manager to build trust between the two sides. For example, an upskilled property manager could take on more responsibility for sustainability objectives and help improve building performance.  

We’re now looking to explore options and implications. If you think you can contribute to this topic with the owner/occupier perspective in mind, then we would like to hear from you.  

There will be a meeting for the community of practice on 2nd October at 3pm BST and we are running a workshop on the topic at the C Change Summit in Barcelona on 17th October. 

Please contact [email protected]. 

Visit: https://urbanland.uli.org/