Dear Desk Diary
Ever felt overwhelmed by the challenges of creating the perfect workspace? You're not alone.
Your employees are likely to spend around 90,000 hours of their lives at work. I'm here to help you make every hour better. Whether you're leading a team, managing an office, or creating spaces people want to work in, join me, Hollie Sanglier, in solving real workplace dilemmas.
Each week, I'll bring in experts to tackle all your issues from boosting team creativity, boosting productivity to designing welcoming workspaces.
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Dear Desk Diary
Futureproofing Properties with Sustainability with Greg Davison
Are you ready to transform your understanding of sustainable real estate? In this episode of Dear Desk Diary, we sit down with Greg Davison, the visionary founding partner of Hollen+. Greg opens up about his journey from private equity to a mission-driven focus on sustainability, motivated by the birth of his first child. He shares invaluable insights into the importance of Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, offering practical advice on how to enhance energy efficiency in buildings while boosting property value and marketing potential.
Discover the latest trends in building sustainability as we unpack the complexities of building accreditations and the growing emphasis on occupant wellness and air quality in a post-COVID world. Greg explains how higher EPC ratings can significantly increase rental and capital values, referencing a pivotal JLL report. He encourages landlords to align office spaces with corporate net-zero goals, stressing the importance of preparing for future regulations like EPCB by 2030. We also delve into the trend of tenants demanding environmentally sound and flexible office spaces to meet their corporate sustainability agendas.
Finally, we explore the dynamic post-COVID landscape of sustainable commuting and office spaces, emphasizing the need for facilities that encourage emission-free travel and enhance employee wellness. From flexible working arrangements to the forward-thinking concept of 15-minute cities, we cover various aspects of creating a wellness-focused work environment. Greg also demystifies ESG accreditations such as BREEAM and Neighbours, discussing their relevance for different building projects. We wrap up with a look at the potential of AI in real estate, highlighting early innovations in energy efficiency monitoring and ESG reporting, and balancing its promise with the complexities of job security. Join us for an episode packed with actionable insights and forward-thinking strategies!
Welcome back to Dear Desk Diary. I'm your host, holly, and today we're talking about a very interesting topic that many landlords and tenants are both thinking about, particularly now and in the coming years, is EPC and ESG for buildings. Epc, or Energy Performance Certificates, and ESG, which stands for Environmental, social and Governance. They're absolutely essential in the real estate landscape today. So, whether you're a landlord or a tenant looking to make your building more sustainable, this episode is definitely for you. So we'll be answering some questions from our listeners which have been sent in to us on how to kind of navigate energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings. So I'm very excited to welcome my guest today. We've got Greg Davison from Holland Plus, the founding partner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, founding partner.
Speaker 1:With 15 years experience at various private equity platforms, greg has expertly managed assets and portfolios valued between 200 million and 500 million across all major asset classes. Inspired by the birth of his first child, greg sought to make a positive environmental impact. This passion led him to launch Holland Plus, a company dedicated to delivering sustainability and ESG solutions that add value while reducing environmental impact. Holland Plus offers a comprehensive range of services, from initial guidance and advice to the procurement and delivery of improvement works. The company collaborates with a diverse clientele, from private investors to global institutions, to achieve their sustainability and ESG goals, with a particular focus on helping clients reach their net zero targets. Welcome, thank you, holly. Thank you for having me. It's a privilege to be here.
Speaker 2:Reach their net zero targets Welcome. Thank you, Holly. Thank you for having me. It's a privilege to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So over to you. How did this all start? Why are you interested in this topic?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a few driving factors behind it. Really my previous role I was doing this kind of thing on a day-to-day basis but obviously confined to the constraints of the particular portfolio I was working on at the time, as you mentioned in the intro, when my first child was born in November 22,. That kind of really focused my mind on kind of how precious and fragile life is and how it sounds slightly cheesy, but protecting the environment for future generations.
Speaker 2:And it was kind of really focused my mind on that and the importance of that over and above other aspects of life.
Speaker 2:So it's really a combination of those things and combined with frustrations and problems.
Speaker 2:I'd seen working on projects and receiving really poor quality advice around, especially around the energy side of things, where some of the advice you were getting the one that sticks in my mind we were doing a back to frame refurbishment of a building in Birmingham, so on Cornwall Road, so directly opposite the cathedral, in a conservation area, so it's grade two listed Georgian building, so it's stripped back to the shell and then we were refurbishing it and one of the pieces of advice we got from an energy consultant we were using at the time was to put a wind turbine on the roof, which is obviously, for anyone that understands real estate, is not practical or feasible on a grade two listed building in a conservation area opposite a cathedral.
Speaker 2:So it was just that kind of level of detail and understanding that was missing from this reporting and I just always thought I could do something better. Thought I could do something better. So using my experience in asset management and real estate and understanding that, the commercial nuances and drivers of real estate, and then translating that into advice and looking at practical ways rather than engineering solutions, and focusing on that. Focusing on the actual correct thing to do for that building as an asset and what will add the right value. What will this investment add value to the particular building? And making sure that the value generated from the investment is greater than the investment. To make investment decisions easier at IC meetings and board meetings.
Speaker 1:Amazing and any success stories. What's going on at the moment?
Speaker 2:We've been very busy actually over the last year or so. A lot of it stems from the energy efficiency side of things. So landlords are starting to realise that the EPC deadlines are kind of fast approaching, starting to realize that the EPC deadlines are kind of fast approaching, and particularly landlords with big portfolios, that they're looking at their kind of cap extreme and working back from the 2030 date when EPCs need to meet EPCB, and realizing that they need to start taking action sooner rather than later to reach the deadline in time. So we obviously try to look at the correct time for a particular building. So if a landlord is doing a project, then they may as well try and do it all in one go rather than revisiting two or three times to actually achieve the EPC.
Speaker 2:So we look at things like tenant block dates if there's a particular time that it makes sense to upgrade a particular piece of kit. But on the flip side we don't recommend replacing things that don't need replacing. So if there's a particular system in place that has got 10 years life left, we're not going to recommend replacing it just for the sake of improving the EPC. We look for different ways of achieving the goal without kind of wasting, you know, ripping out systems that don't need to be altered. So we've had really good success on the energy efficiency side and that kind of ties in very closely with the, the sg accreditation. So once the landlord has invested a significant sum, it's obviously nice to be able to assess and quantify that through an accreditation. So the two are tied quite closely together.
Speaker 2:So for landlords spending a million pounds upgrading their building, then it is nice to have something to show the wider world in terms of, you know, marketing for tenants and uh, you know existing tenants and potential tenants. It's nice to have something to be able to show the wider world in terms of marketing for tenants and existing tenants and potential tenants. It's nice to have something to be able to show off the back of it and kind of underpin the investment.
Speaker 1:And so obviously a lot of people listening to this will be landlords. So we'll understand. But for any tenants listening, can you just define the two sides, the EPC and ESG? What does that actually mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So the EPC is obviously focused around the energy efficiency of the building. So it looks at the systems of the building, the building fabric and how the building's used, to come up with a rating for that particular building. So the best buildings will have A and B ratings and the worst buildings are E and F and G.
Speaker 2:The legislation is getting tighter and tighter. So by 2027, all buildings need to be in EPCC and then by 2030, all buildings need to be in EPCB. So the rules and regulations are getting tighter and tighter around where buildings need to be, and that's obviously driven by the net zero goals that the government have legislated.
Speaker 1:And if you don't, is there a fine yeah there are fines.
Speaker 2:So from the 1st of April 2023, the fines came in, so all buildings now need to be an EPC-E. So if they're below that level, then landlords are at risk of getting fined, and that's tied to rotable values. So it's really something that can't afford to be ignored anymore. There's obviously the financial impact, but also reputational risk. If you're a landlord trying to show off your environmental credentials to tenants, then if you're being fined by the regulator because your buildings aren't energy efficient enough, then it's a bit of a reputational risk and potential damage.
Speaker 1:What makes a building energy efficient? I'm sorry I'm being I don't know.
Speaker 2:No, no, absolutely, I'm just interested yeah so it's tied to things like the building fabric. So, are the walls insulated properly? Is the roof insulated properly? The windows, are they double glazed and triple glazed, rather?
Speaker 2:than single glazed, also the actual systems in the building. So there's a drive to move away from gas to electric, obviously because of the carbon emissions associated with gas. So buildings with gas systems in them are being penalized versus those with electric systems. That's really trying to drive the market towards electric systems over the next five years or so. So it's a combination of all these factors kind of factored into the actual energy efficiency of the building. It shows it's not a particularly sophisticated tool but it's a tool that can be used across the entire industry.
Speaker 2:So there are other more sophisticated ESG accreditation that look at the building, the efficiency day-to-day in use, rather than just a kind of a snapshot, which is what the EPC is. So the EPC is a kind of a blunt tool to to look at the snapshot. So it's often best combined with an in-use accreditation as well, something like a neighbor's accreditation or a briam use accreditation to actually ensure the building is is being run in an efficient way as well, well as the actual building fabric. So the two kind of complement each other and go hand in hand and sit together quite nicely.
Speaker 1:Are there any countries doing it well?
Speaker 2:To be fair to the UK, we're one of the most progressed on this.
Speaker 2:It was a European directive that got adopted quite a long time ago in the UK, so it's been around for a long time. People generally understand what it is. There's similar things on electrical goods. When you go and buy a fridge freeze, it's got a similar rating system on it, so people understand that A is better than E or F. So it's been around a while. It's not perfect, but it's something that can be applied to the whole industry and provide a reasonable benchmark between two buildings If you've got one that's an a and one that's an e then it's a pretty safe bet.
Speaker 1:Then the one with an a is more energy efficient and will have lower running costs versus the one with an e got it and so, esg, yeah, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's obviously quite a wide yeah it's a very, very broad set of principles that cover a huge area.
Speaker 2:So it's quite hard to kind of lump everything into one and it depends on the company or the actual landlord in question as to how they interpret and what's important to them.
Speaker 2:Funds and properties registered in different locations around the world will have very different reporting requirements, very different views on the particular importance of each aspect of it.
Speaker 2:We generally look at the accreditations and see how it's quite interesting how many there are now and they all offer something slightly different. So a lot of them so on the environmental side, a lot of them look at the building performance of energy and that kind of thing. Then over the last few years, especially since, probably since COVID, there's been maybe half a dozen to maybe eight to 10 accreditations come in that look more around the occupant, wellness and things like air quality, wellbeing and those kinds of things. So it really depends what the landlord is trying to achieve through gaining accreditation. So we'll kind of sit with the landlord, understand what their priorities are, understand the building, go and see the building, get to know the building and then make a recommendation on the back of that around what the landlord is trying to achieve and present the options and say look, these are the pros and cons of each and this is the rough cost for implementing them.
Speaker 1:So we might answer this later. I don't want to skip ahead, but I'm just thinking what are the main kind of drivers? For a landlord to invest in this, because it's a nice thing to do, right, but is it, you know, does it actually add value? And also, obviously, the regulations are a massive driver and that's going to force people to invest, but what else is there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's probably one of the most common questions I get asked when I go and sit with clients is around the value piece, and there's been lots of pieces of research, but the one I quote most often is there was a JLL report done in 2023 called Value and Sustainability and it was a study of 600 office buildings in London over a five, six year period and it looked at the rental and capital value differentials between the buildings with different EPC ratings and ESG ratings and that study found that for every EPC band improved. So from a B to an A, it was a 3.7% capital value and a 4.2% rental value increase for each band. So if you're moving from an E to an A, it's a significant value improvement, and that's really being driven by the tenant side.
Speaker 2:So, obviously tenants want to be in the better space, so environmentally sound buildings.
Speaker 1:You'd hope so.
Speaker 2:Well it's. The flight to quality is the kind of over the last, you know, five, six, seven years tenants are and, especially since COVID, the way that's changed how people use office space. People want to be in less space but better space. It's more flexible and more environmentally sound. So there's been a real shift towards that. So there's a real drive from tenants to take space that is environmentally sound. It's also being driven by the net zero progress.
Speaker 2:So if you've got a corporate agenda that is said right, we're going to be net zero by 2030, you can't be then taking office space which is poorly energy efficient because it's not going to meet your goals. So there's a whole raft of the market that will only take EPCA or net zero space and a lot of the big agencies are advising their clients to do that because it future proofs their investment of the big agencies are advising their clients to do that because it future proofs their their investment. If you're taking a 10-year lease, then you know you're investing millions of pounds in a fit out, you're, you're there for a long period of time, that you know you're showing that space off to your clients and that that's the face of your business. Then it needs to align with your corporate objective. So there's no point taking a building that doesn't, you know, doesn't align with those objectives, because it's just gonna, it's not going to sit well with with with with the business particularly they're doing something like b corp or something exactly.
Speaker 2:So all of these things factored in, so there's just more and more focus on on the industry, which is great and it's the direction it needs to go in. There's yeah, there's a lot of kind of misunderstanding of how the industry is going. So it's it's really important to understand the kind of the driving principle of the decision-making behind a business's decision, kind of journey towards net zero, any particular goal, and then kind of work backwards from the deadline that they've set and look at how and different ways to achieve that.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Should we listen to a question?
Speaker 2:Oh sure.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. Let's dive in. Okay, hi Greg, I want to know what you think that the industry trends are going to hold in the next five years. Um, and with this new, any new regulations that are coming out in the next five years, how will that affect my buildings Excellent, okay, yes, I think the biggest single thing for most landlords to consider is the EPCB by 2030.
Speaker 2:Landlords need to be making plans now rather than leaving until 2029, 2030, because there's going to be a huge influx of work being needed by then. So prices we're expecting prices to go up by 20, 30, 40% from today, which they're already much higher than they were, purely by the supply-demand imbalance. There's only so many contractors out there and if landlords are leaving to the last minute to do the work, there's going to be a huge supply-demand imbalance. So we're recommending clients make a plan now and factor that in, and often the works don't need to be done in one go. They can be factored in around tenant renewals and getting space back in the building and the life cycle of that building. But it's best to have a plan in place now rather than bury your head in the sand and leave it to the last minute, because that's just going to cost you more in the long run.
Speaker 2:In terms of other trends, I think obviously the rise of AI has been big across the world. There's a lot of people trying to understand how to utilize that in the industry at the minute. That can be used really effectively in things like energy management systems. So taking the manual element out of managing buildings and finding better ways to do that, and we offer a solution that sits above BMS systems that looks at future weather patterns, so make sure the buildings are being run as energy efficiently as possible. So that's been a real success story.
Speaker 2:In terms of other trends, yeah, I think that you know the flexible working is here to stay. So it's how landlords adapt their buildings to meet tenant needs. So if a landlord's got a building with space that is never let, then it is, you know, considering, instead of holding onto it with the hope of getting it let at some point in the future, taking that space and making it into communal facilities for the building. It may be a kind of a short-term hit on the value, but once you know if the building gets fully let in, you can move the ERVs on. Then it pays itself back very quickly.
Speaker 1:There must be a lot of empty space in London.
Speaker 2:There's, I think there's, a lot of buildings with space that can be utilised better. That is, you know, struggles to let has long void periods is of lower value. It's those kind of spaces that if you take them back and create communal facilities for the wider building, then you actually end up improving the ERVs across the building and that often has a you know, it's a creative value, value creative to the wider investment Do you think working from home is better for the environment.
Speaker 1:That's quite difficult to answer. I guess it depends how you get to work.
Speaker 2:That's a big question. If you're taking flights and everything to get to get to the office, then yes, I mean, if you were cycling into the office, then you know it doesn't matter If your journey is carbon free, obviously. Obviously it's something I'm quite passionate about cycling and making sure tenants have facilities that enables them to travel to, to and from work emission free.
Speaker 2:so walking, running, cycling, scooter whatever that may be as long as you know. You need facilities at the end, when you get there, you need, you know, a nice hot shower. You need somewhere to store your bike or your scooter or or whatever form of transport you've got. You need, you know, lockers and drying rooms, that kind of thing. You need to make sure those facilities are provided for tenants to enable them to make that better decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's funny. I suppose now that after COVID people aren't the rush hour doesn't really exist anymore.
Speaker 2:It's a lot longer, I think, is it? Well, my particular line is yeah, it's gone much earlier, much later now, so it's gone much earlier much later now, but um so it's funny. I can always tell people's like work from home days because like monday is always really quiet on the train, yeah I'm like so funny rush hour's just gone now, yeah, mondays and fridays seem to be much quieter than but I wonder how much rush hour has an impact on the environment.
Speaker 1:But then the office, like you say, needs to become this like collaborative yeah, I think you know place where people can't.
Speaker 2:It's like a destination, yeah exactly, I think, when people are in the office. So, like you said, you know people may be in three days a week as opposed to five days pre-covid. So employees are now offering more flexible terms, which is great for kind of work-life balance. It saves you commuting in into the office five days a week. But when people are in the office they want a different experience.
Speaker 1:So it's not it's not just quality at your desk.
Speaker 2:It's having functional space you can sit with teams and, uh, you know flexible meeting rooms and flexible, you know auditoriums and things where you can actually be together as a team rather than just sat at your desk working, you know, nine to five in the traditional manner. It's having that kind of flexible approach and often the those facilities don't need to be within the tent demise so tenants can take less but they have the flexible space somewhere else within the building so you know they might need the space on a Monday, for example. So you know you could hire it on a Monday and another tenant could have it on, you know, for the rest of the week. And there's no one size or you know one size approach fits all. It's finding the right thing for the building. So it's quite hard to advise around. There's not just the right way to do something. Every building needs to be considered on its own merits.
Speaker 1:And I suppose with improving the quality of a building not only improves the sustainable aspect but the wellness of the people in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and that's something a lot of the ESG accreditations focus on is wellness and the facilities provided for the tenants. Things like breakout space, space to be away from your desk, you know, planting schemes, natural daylight, those kinds of things, quality of the air All of these things kind of add up to the overall wellness of a building. So there's a few different accreditations which look specifically, look at those factors.
Speaker 1:I interviewed someone a while ago. We were talking about 15 minute cities specifically. Look at those factors I interviewed someone a while ago. We were talking about 15 minute cities. I'd not heard of this before, but it's fascinating. Thought everything you need within 15 minutes. I can like picture.
Speaker 2:It's like utopia I don't mean, yeah, it's quite utopian theme, isn't it? But um, it's kind of the way it should be. Obviously depends on your kind of micro location, as to where you are, but maybe not realistic.
Speaker 1:It's a nice idea. It sounds it's a nice idea. It sounds nice. It's a nice idea. Okay, let's go. Let's do the next one. Hi, greg, I'm a bit confused about which accreditation to get. How would a landlord choose which?
Speaker 2:accreditations to use. Okay, interesting question. Yeah, I get asked this quite a lot actually in meetings. I mean it feels like there's a new one coming out every week. But there are a lot of accreditations and I fully appreciate it does get quite confusing. They're generally I try and simplify it they're generally kind of classified into different areas looking at different things.
Speaker 2:So the kind of one that's quite well known is BREEAM which is the main BREEAM focuses on the construction of a building and you know the building materials embedded carbon, that kind of thing to at the overall, overall sustainability of that particular building, that's that's great, that's really important, but that's only.
Speaker 2:It's quite an expensive process to go through. It's very lengthy, very lengthy, very involved. Lots of consultants can can be very expensive on on big projects. So that's only really suitable for a small proportion of projects, either very heavy refurbishment or a new build, which is obviously only a very small part of the market. So it's great, it has its place. But if you were just doing a minor light refurbishment, you wouldn't go down that route because it's expensive and time consuming.
Speaker 2:You would look at something slightly more light touch around either a Brion in use or something like a Neighbours. Which is more, it's a slim line version looking at the energy efficiency of that building. So it achieves a similar thing in the sense it displays the energy performance and the actual environmental credentials of the building, but it's a lighter touch. Oh good. I've not heard of that one before, yeah, and there's other ones looking at wellness and well-being. So there's the well and fit well, which really focus on the occupant experience around their well-being.
Speaker 1:Quite good for flexible spaces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly it kind of looks at the yeah, it looks at the facilities provided and looks at various aspects of what the the occupants in the building experience. Then you get really specific ones, things like active school, which looks at active travel facilities in the building. So back to the conversation around kind of cycling or active travel into the into does the particular building provide the facilities for the tenants or are they of a suitable standard for the tenants?
Speaker 1:So who would?
Speaker 2:that suit. They're generally done for office buildings, but there's no reason you couldn't do them for a shopping centre or an industrial estate, for a particular building. They're generally suited to office buildings. Similarly, motor School really focuses on, on sustainable travel, so and connectivity. So if if you were looking at, for example, if your building had a bit of a bit of a stigma as not being very well connected or in a bit of a in a bit of a dark part of the market, then you could potentially look at doing mode score, which which really looks at the the connectivity of public transport, and the the on-site facilities of sustainable transport, and and provide a rating on that basis to help display the actual credentials of the building I guess that'd be quite relevant for outside of london a little bit as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so. It's um, you know, things like business parks that might might have a bit of a stigma of not being well connected. You could, you could implement something like a mode score to help display to the market that you are in fact, you know, really well connected and you get a different rating for, for, for the overall score that the building achieves.
Speaker 1:Next one I want to invest in ESG and EPC improvement works. I want to make sure that it definitely adds value. How can you make sure that these accreditations add value and how do you measure that? Talked about this a little bit. Yeah, I guess it's kind of measurement side a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a very common theme. It's around the added value yeah I mean obviously everything we we try and recommend adds more value than it costs. I think that's just a fundamental. You know, money makes the work around I'm sitting you in. You know thousands of board meetings and IC meetings where 99% of decisions are based on returns. So if you're not hitting the return threshold then you're not going to get approved for the particular, not just because it's a nice thing to do for the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I mean, there is that yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I'd say 99% of you know decisions in boardrooms and IC meetings are based around returns and the financial aspect of it. So it just makes sense to make landlords' lives easier by recommending solutions that add more value than they cost and that just helps speed the process up and it just helps achieve our kind of mutual goals of reducing the environmental impact. It just helps achieve our kind of mutual goals of reducing the environmental impact If you can provide solutions which benefit either save costs or add value more so than they cost then, it just makes decisions I hate the phrase but makes them a no-brainer and just allows it's just more conducive to moving the industry forward.
Speaker 2:For any given building we'll look at the client's objectives around what they're looking to achieve and then we'll work backwards from that and look at the different options that they have to achieve that goal. We'll often sit with the agency teams and model through different scenarios and say, ok, if we do option A, what's that going to add to the rent? And then that can be modeled through to see what capital value that adds to the overall building. And nine times out of 10, the first few ideas we suggest add more value than their cost. And then it's around kind of tweaking the overall design to meet the client's goals but also to look at the value side and see which design option adds the most value for the given cost.
Speaker 1:And so how do you measure that?
Speaker 2:If you look at the, so if you're doing work that is potentially adding value to the rent, so it moves your ERVs on, then that can be capitalised and modelled through. And yeah, we generally see most projects we look at generally return between two to four times the original investment when it's been modelled through on the rent, amazing.
Speaker 1:So worth it? Yes, it is. It's good for value and does nice things as well.
Speaker 2:It's looking at the financial side as well, it really helps kind of cement the reason for doing it as well yeah, oh, your child's going to be so happy okay, last one with the rise of ai, I'm wondering how this will impact how we measure sustainability in buildings.
Speaker 1:Will there be a shortcut? Is there anything you've seen in the AI field that can be used as a tool to help with ESG or EPC ratings? So we've kind of touched on AI a little bit, but it's the age-old question. It's what everyone's talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, there's a lot of talk around AI and that's obviously in its infancy, especially in real estate. Real estate tends to be quite a slow adopter of everything, so I'm sure in five years time we'll have lots of solutions, but right now, I mean there's a few things we've seen that work quite well. One of them is the AR BMS system which I touched on earlier. That kind of monitors the energy efficiency of the building and really takes the manual element out of running the building and really does it on a much more efficient scale, looking at future weather patterns. There's other things that ESG reporting again can be quite laborious. So taking data from multiple sources, putting them into a particular format for any particular given ESG reporting, that may need to be done. So there's software coming through that can look at that and make that an automated task.
Speaker 2:You can say something like BREEAM like, which is so lengthy yeah there'll be certain aspects of that where it can help, but it's looking at the. If you're tracking a whole year's worth of energy bills, for example, and you're you have to report on you know. If you've got a portfolio of a thousand buildings and you're you know you're tracking energy usage across all of them for your esu reporting, there'll be hugely energy and time consuming.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's software coming through which can help automate that process, which will be a big relief for a lot of landlords with huge ESU reporting requirements. We probably haven't touched on, you know, the start of where AI can help the industry, but they're kind of the early movers that we've seen in the industry and I'm sure there'll be lots more coming through over the next year or two, so exciting. It's interesting, I'm a big fan of AI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people are always really scared of it and I'm like I think it's great, I think as long as it's used in the right way, I think it's a really powerful tool and helps people focus on what really matters rather than spending hours inputting into sell sheet.
Speaker 1:Which people can spend that time doing something more you know, more value accretive exactly, although I did read something yesterday that they're developing an ai model that has common sense interesting.
Speaker 2:I look forward to seeing that they're very becoming very human yeah, very quickly. It's scary, isn't it scary, but it's also really exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's going to be so helpful until I lose my job, because yeah that's the thing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a bit of a fine line okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Well, we're coming towards the end okay did you want to add anything else at all?
Speaker 2:no, just thank you for uh having me on the podcast. It's real privilege to be here and yeah been really really fun recording. Thank you, amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you, um, so you can connect with Greg on LinkedIn. Um, his LinkedIn profile will be in the show notes and also the link to Holland Plus as well. So thank you so much. See you next time you.