Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SURE2050 (SUstainable Real Estate 2050)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-04-30
Sustainable Public Real Estate Management (SPREM) is almost non-existent in Flanders (Belgium). SPREM can be defined as the management – i.e. acquisition, holding, using and disposing - of real estate assets in such a way that it realizes ambitious sustainability goals, minimizes the total costs of ownership and life cycle costs and maximises the benefits of real estate for the community.
The absence of SPREM is a major barrier for large scale sustainable energy investments in public buildings in the short, medium and long term in Flanders, hence also posing a risk for not reaching the 2050 climate goals for the public building stock.
Public buildings are an important meeting place between the government's policy and the citizens. It's an interface where sustainability becomes tangible. Realizing a sustainable building stock has many more advantages than just lowering the energy and maintenance bills. The public buildings are increasingly becoming multi-functional, are adapting to changing needs of public services and guarantee a healthy indoor climate.
SURE2050 (SUstainable Real Estate 2050) wants to make the public building stock of local and Flemish government future-proof.
The development of a strategic real estate vision and plan at portfolio level is considered as a condition to realize a climate-neutral public building stock by 2050. The strategic real estate plans are also the basis for decision making on investments in energy efficiency measures (EE) and local renewable energy projects (RE) in individual buildings. A strategic real estate vision goes however beyond only the use of energy, also spatial policy is a crucial part of this long term vision.
Plenty of the existing public buildings need to be renovated in depth to reach climate and energy targets. A huge investment is needed and simultaneously, public budgets are scarce. However within the existing building stock, there is also a big potential of finding adequate resources and implementing cost savings.
SURE2050 will support to make the right choices at the right time to realize a cost-efficient, climate-neutral public building stock. To achieve the creation of strategic real estate visions and translation of this vision into actionable investment plans, the project focuses on creating a strong methodology, which is put into practice through coaching and trainings and supported with templates and tools:
1. Organisational improvements: identifying ways to professionalise the decision making and to start implementation of measures in a cost-efficient and effective way.
2. Real estate optimisation: realising a coherent future-proof real estate strategy with milestones for 2030, 2040 and 2050.
3. Energy efficiency measures: preparing, tendering and implementing investment projects (incl searching adequate financing solutions) to reduce the buildings energy demands.
The absence of SPREM is a major barrier for large scale sustainable energy investments in public buildings in the short, medium and long term in Flanders, hence also posing a risk for not reaching the 2050 climate goals for the public building stock.
Public buildings are an important meeting place between the government's policy and the citizens. It's an interface where sustainability becomes tangible. Realizing a sustainable building stock has many more advantages than just lowering the energy and maintenance bills. The public buildings are increasingly becoming multi-functional, are adapting to changing needs of public services and guarantee a healthy indoor climate.
SURE2050 (SUstainable Real Estate 2050) wants to make the public building stock of local and Flemish government future-proof.
The development of a strategic real estate vision and plan at portfolio level is considered as a condition to realize a climate-neutral public building stock by 2050. The strategic real estate plans are also the basis for decision making on investments in energy efficiency measures (EE) and local renewable energy projects (RE) in individual buildings. A strategic real estate vision goes however beyond only the use of energy, also spatial policy is a crucial part of this long term vision.
Plenty of the existing public buildings need to be renovated in depth to reach climate and energy targets. A huge investment is needed and simultaneously, public budgets are scarce. However within the existing building stock, there is also a big potential of finding adequate resources and implementing cost savings.
SURE2050 will support to make the right choices at the right time to realize a cost-efficient, climate-neutral public building stock. To achieve the creation of strategic real estate visions and translation of this vision into actionable investment plans, the project focuses on creating a strong methodology, which is put into practice through coaching and trainings and supported with templates and tools:
1. Organisational improvements: identifying ways to professionalise the decision making and to start implementation of measures in a cost-efficient and effective way.
2. Real estate optimisation: realising a coherent future-proof real estate strategy with milestones for 2030, 2040 and 2050.
3. Energy efficiency measures: preparing, tendering and implementing investment projects (incl searching adequate financing solutions) to reduce the buildings energy demands.
We kicked off the project with 75 participants (municipalities and regional Flemish government), much more than initially expected. At the end of the project 108 participants took part in the project, covering more than 30% of the total group of stakeholders.
The project approach is to include all aspects that have an impact on the realisation of the energy and climate objectives and other goals for public buildings. Although the focus of the methodology is real estate, other aspects such as spatial policy, mobility, citizen participation, climate adaptation,… are addressed within the SPREM methodology.
To translate this methodology into practice, training sessions and individual coaching sessions were provided to the participants to support creating their strategic real estate visions and plans. As such, the training methodology was transformed into a step-by-step 'learning by doing' approach, with the SPREM coach as a guide. Supporting tools have been developed to support decision making and management of the transition period towards a climate neutral real estate portfolio.
Next to the training sessions on SPREM, several sessions were organized on specific related topics, involving more theme-related external partners.
All material is available on a learning platform, which is shared in cooperation with the European project BE REEL! (renovation of residential building stock) and freely available for consultation.
COVID-19 as well as the energy crisis had quite a big impact on the resources (both budget and personnel) of the public entities, especially municipalities. Next to a more structural lack of resources, this caused a delay in finalizing the strategic real estate plans. Hence several mitigation actions were defined and implemented. We worked on:
(1) visibility and priority:
(a) Priority: use legislation / political agreements to convince
(b) Visibility: animation movie to explain SPREM and the added value (can be consulted on www.sure2050.be)
(c) Visibility: opened up our webinars for all public entities
(2) Political commitment:
(a) Creation of a policy document to be used by the College of Mayor and Aldermen to define and agree on the framework for a real estate policy. we use the Covenant of Mayors as overall framework. When the framework for SPREM is politically agreed, the administration can work out the details.
(3) Resources
(a) VEB and HFB (as procurement organizations) procured a Framework Agreement for sustainable real estate management in the public sector. Through a framework agreement, we ensure a correct methodology is followed, and as well relieve the public entities which do not need to procure themselves.
(b) intensive coaching for 5 selected municipalities (small to medium sized) - create ambassadors.
We started coaching of investment projects in parallel with SPREM. As implementation of SPREM takes longer and investment projects continue, we can ensure with the project coaching that investment projects are in line with the goals of SPREM and to reach carbon neutral public buildings. At the end of the project, we achieved investment projects for 28,156 mio EUR; from 105 investment projects.
All information on the project is collected in the final report.
The project approach is to include all aspects that have an impact on the realisation of the energy and climate objectives and other goals for public buildings. Although the focus of the methodology is real estate, other aspects such as spatial policy, mobility, citizen participation, climate adaptation,… are addressed within the SPREM methodology.
To translate this methodology into practice, training sessions and individual coaching sessions were provided to the participants to support creating their strategic real estate visions and plans. As such, the training methodology was transformed into a step-by-step 'learning by doing' approach, with the SPREM coach as a guide. Supporting tools have been developed to support decision making and management of the transition period towards a climate neutral real estate portfolio.
Next to the training sessions on SPREM, several sessions were organized on specific related topics, involving more theme-related external partners.
All material is available on a learning platform, which is shared in cooperation with the European project BE REEL! (renovation of residential building stock) and freely available for consultation.
COVID-19 as well as the energy crisis had quite a big impact on the resources (both budget and personnel) of the public entities, especially municipalities. Next to a more structural lack of resources, this caused a delay in finalizing the strategic real estate plans. Hence several mitigation actions were defined and implemented. We worked on:
(1) visibility and priority:
(a) Priority: use legislation / political agreements to convince
(b) Visibility: animation movie to explain SPREM and the added value (can be consulted on www.sure2050.be)
(c) Visibility: opened up our webinars for all public entities
(2) Political commitment:
(a) Creation of a policy document to be used by the College of Mayor and Aldermen to define and agree on the framework for a real estate policy. we use the Covenant of Mayors as overall framework. When the framework for SPREM is politically agreed, the administration can work out the details.
(3) Resources
(a) VEB and HFB (as procurement organizations) procured a Framework Agreement for sustainable real estate management in the public sector. Through a framework agreement, we ensure a correct methodology is followed, and as well relieve the public entities which do not need to procure themselves.
(b) intensive coaching for 5 selected municipalities (small to medium sized) - create ambassadors.
We started coaching of investment projects in parallel with SPREM. As implementation of SPREM takes longer and investment projects continue, we can ensure with the project coaching that investment projects are in line with the goals of SPREM and to reach carbon neutral public buildings. At the end of the project, we achieved investment projects for 28,156 mio EUR; from 105 investment projects.
All information on the project is collected in the final report.
SURE2050 has had a strong impact on public policy making at the Flemish regional level. The Flemish government decided to centralise the management of all public office buildings at the regional level with the objective to improve the efficiency of the portfolio and to realise a climate neutral public real estate building stock by 2045. SURE2050 has been included as the preferred management approach for public buildings in the Flemish Energy and Climate plan (part of the National Energy and Climate Plan) and the public entities at Flemish level are obliged to have a real estate strategy in 2023.
A Climate action Pact for the Flemish municipalities was signed by 293 of the 300 Flemish municipalities. The added value of a strategic real estate plan for municipalities is part of this Climate action Pact, with SURE2050 as best practice.
Municipalities and Flemish regional public entities who finalized their real estate strategy confirmed the added value of the process and the result. For them this makes the path towards a carbon free public building stock clear and realisable.
A Climate action Pact for the Flemish municipalities was signed by 293 of the 300 Flemish municipalities. The added value of a strategic real estate plan for municipalities is part of this Climate action Pact, with SURE2050 as best practice.
Municipalities and Flemish regional public entities who finalized their real estate strategy confirmed the added value of the process and the result. For them this makes the path towards a carbon free public building stock clear and realisable.