Season 3, Episode 110 : Marian Ferguson

00:00
Marian, thank you so much for joining us for the Green Element Podcast, I'm really looking forward to speaking to you, partly driven by the fact that we have been working with you on and off now for two years, three years, a client of ours, introduced me to you. And it's amazing what you guys can do and how you can help organizations become more environmental. And so, can you tell us a bit about Energy Lab and what it is that you guys do there, please?

00:36
Hi, well, thank you for this opportunity to tell you a bit more about what we do. And we're a building services design consultancy. And what that means is that we basically design the services that support a building's function, whether that building be a commercial office, whether it be a school, a hospital, a hotel, or residential. And, not surprisingly, we have quite a big impact on the energy that our building will use. If you think about your air conditioning systems, your power systems, your lighting, these are all elements that we design. So, we have a, we have a responsibility to design that in the most sustainable way. So, at the heart of what Energy Lab does is sustainable building services design for clients, and to walk them through that process. Now that building can be a brand-new building. Or it can be a heritage building, which has its own challenges. Or very often, we work in refurbished buildings, which to be honest, is our favorite aspect of things, because you've got an opportunity to improve something and actually reuse something, rather than knock something down and build something up again. So that's at the heart of our business and what we do.

02:01
Brilliant. I mean, it's, I mean, it's brilliant. And it's great that you just highlighted the reusing of buildings, because our stock, as it were, is our building stock is the majority, older buildings, isn't it? So, we really need to understand how to make those older buildings more environmental.

02:21
Yes. And there's a lot of work, though. It's gathering momentum. And there's a lot of work within our industry to look at that no. And, you know, one of our frustrations and disappointments in our industry is kind of a throwaway culture, that where we've had that system for X number of years, let's throw it away or, or this building, let's knock it down, and let's build it again. And we tend not to come from that. Yes, if your systems and your building are old and inefficient, and it's costing you more to trying to keep them going, yes, let's look at new systems. But very often you can look and see how can we refurbish this? How can we repurpose this? How can you use it, because the nerve viewpoint is much more sustainable, to keep something you've got and try to improve it, then scrap everything, send it to waste, and then buy some new kit then. So, you know, it's an interesting scenario. And I think your industry has been a bit slow and catch you're catching on to this in comparison to see other industries in the retail, for instance, but we're getting there.

03:34
I guess it's a bit like doing a lifecycle analysis, isn't it on a building? When you're talking about, I'm now envisaging the say, you know, the duct, the pipes, and the duct? Is it duct, duct, duct in?

03:49
Ductwork? Yes.

03:50
Ductwork. and all of that all of the stuff that kind of the ins and outs of the building and how and the air conditioning and the heating and everything that goes on. And there is, okay, if you're taking it out, you are hopefully recycling it. But there's still that life cycle. That is that should be brought into that really shouldn't it and that's what you're saying you're bringing into your projects.

04:15
Definitely. I mean, there's that there's a whole cost analysis that sits with that. But if you're looking at the bigger picture, and I'm looking at the lifecycle of a product, very often, things like ductwork and pipework have got a much longer life than people anticipate. And provided you've got to look after them. If you're poorly maintained, then you know, that's an issue. But if you look after them, you know, your infrastructure can last for 40 years. And your equipment that's connected to it very often doesn't. And you have to take a view on that when that goes particularly when there's much more energy-efficient equipment out there at the moment. And for instance, there's a move away from gas-fired equipment, no, or gas, and is no seen as, as being more of a political and kind of carbon-heavy now. And, and we're looking at much more electrical-based systems. So sometimes you have to look at that. But if you've got a perfectly suitable gas-fired system in your building at the moment that still has 10 years left, you say, why take that out? Let's see how we can adapt that to use.

05:27
Okay, that's really interesting. And it's, is a big transition, isn't it? I was talking to my brother, who I wouldn't say is the most environmental of people. But interestingly, he's just done up his house and put pure electrics into his kitchen because of gas. And he's, I could have put a gas oven, but it didn't see any point in it. And it was really heartening. And it was interesting to see someone that is just looking at pragmatically at the future going, actually, this is what I should be doing. Yeah, do you. You talked about the type of organizations that you work for, and it's a real cross-section because you said hospitals, schools, and businesses, and residential. There must be different drivers for each of those different organizations.

06:20
Definitely, if you're working on a commercial office, say for a developer stroke landlord, and there, they've got a different driver, because ultimately, their tenants pay for their, their own electricity and gas bills on fuel bills. So sometimes it's not in the interest of the landlord to put a big capital cost to reduce running costs. And for a while, that was a, you know, you had landlords who didn't care, no, you're seeing landlords will actually, it's, it's a good rental selling point for my building, and it encourages tenants. And once you've got an environmentally friendly building, when you're looking at residential, whether that be a residential block for, say, a housing association, or individual houses, we do some individual houses as well. And that's very much that's people's own money. And so, they're very conscious about, again, the life cycle, what do I need to know? What's my payback, and sort of slightly, you know, slightly different drivers. And when you're actually looking at residential, it's somebody's home, they have an emotional attachment to it. So sometimes aesthetics are really, really strong. And whereas if you're looking at a commercial office, yes, you've got aesthetics as well. But there's no there's other drivers about Amitabh is going to like it, how long will it last? And are spheres available, available? So, it's interesting, when you're looking at an educational establishment, again, it's something different. And we have a mutual client of the university. But that university basically operates and all your own, so doesn't have 10 times as such, because they have other things going on. Their drivers are, what can I do in my various small-time scale that have, because downtime just doesn't work? So, you have to look at what products you can put in at that time? What expertise is available to put in that product? If it's a very new product, sometimes the expertise is not there. So, lots of you know, it's a very complex mesh. And so, each project is almost bespoke, well, where you've got to go and look and see what's the driver behind this project, and really understand what your client wants.

08:43
Yeah, that's, yeah, that's the um, here's a question for that. I'd love to, I can't, I can't. You've got a new building, and you are putting up a five-story building and everything new. And then you've got an older building, and you are retrofitting. It's the new ones got all the air conditioning, H-VAC, heating, all new and everything. And the old ones got windows that you can open, and it's a much older Victorian building. Which one should be more do you think is more environmental? I've just off the top of your head. And why?

09:24
Well, that's interesting, because, um, as a young engineer, and I did a study on various edges of buildings, and what was more environmentally friendly, and to be honest, the Victorians actually really got it right. They had natural ventilation, they had natural chimney stocks, and they had actually quite a good construction process. And, and the windows openable but at a rate, you know, a raid size and when we went into the kind of Post-World War Two period where there was rapid builds, and I think we lost the plot a bit in terms of what rebuilt and very poor and performing buildings, what some damp problems and lots of drafty windows, people associate that with Victorian buildings. But actually, in the 50s and 60s, construction really wasn't that great. What we're building know, is super fabric performing airtight buildings, which is great to a certain point. But what you're having to do is put mechanical ventilation in because the slurry is tight. And sometimes in the summer, you create like a bit of a drafty building. And so, what happens is that you are, and you're having to probably put more ventilation more code than you would normally have done an older building. So, I would see both ends of the spectrum. I've got the good ideas, and the middle, or mid-century stuff. Rubbish. My personal preference, I think the Victorians got it right. Actually.

11:13
it's funny to say that, because that's my gut feeling is that because we, as you know, look at the energy usage in buildings, and we've over the last 20 odd years, we've had quite a few companies that have moved from old buildings to new. And I'm always flabbergasted on how much energy the bills go up. And they're told by architects all it's gonna be much cheaper to run, it's gonna, and we've got clients go, No, it's not, it's actually more expensive to run now. And we're paying more rent, and we have to pay for the building. And we have to, so actually, the whole thing is more costly to us. And then all the staff complained because they can't open the windows because they, they used to opening the windows. And, and I, and we tried to show we did a with the filter in an air conditioning, and it was a client in central London. And in order to, I guess, prove our points of why we moved buildings, we showed what the filter would look like, after a week, I think it was a week, but it was black. Whatever it was, it was a short amount of time. And we like that's the reason why we don't want the windows open. You don't want to have that in your lungs. And but I still don't know. And I think that's why it's really interesting talking to someone that's actually an expert in this field.

12:36
And there's a lot of and really sophisticated controls for new buildings, now Will that, you know, ramps plan up and down, whether you depends on occupancy, and you know, measures co2, measures pollutants, and can actually reduce the consumption of your equipment in relation to occupancy. And they're great when they're what can the setup correctly, not so good when they don't. But if you think in the older buildings, you switched to heating on you switch to heating off, you opened your windows, you closed your windows, and not very sophisticated, but actually give you a reasonably comfortable environment. And when actually not too bad, not too bad in terms of energy consumption.

13:27
Yeah, and I think that's it, isn't it? It's that. And then it's Where do you buy your energy from? And it becomes a much more complicated picture as we make our buildings more complicated. Because, yeah, I'm because I'm gonna bring in the passivhaus theory. And that, because that seems to bridge a gap, doesn't it?

13:50
Yes, it does. It's a bit. I mean, it's a very specialized field. And you've got to be very careful that you get that right. But and there's, you know, there's, there's very few people who actually really understand it, there's a lot of talk about it. And but for the very few people that really understand it, it's not something that and we are an expert on by any means, because we see that there's, you know, it's a very complex, it's a very complex thing, and you have got to get it right. But as a principle, it's a great principle.

14:23
Okay. Interesting. And what sort of best practices have you seen in your time doing what you're doing?

14:32
Well, and I'm seeing people being much more aware of the control of their systems, and that being really important to them. So, people know really understand if I've got, a floor in my office building that's only 50% occupied. Why am I using 100% of my equipment all the time to people who are much more aware of that? And that's something that we really focus on is trying to match what your equipment is doing to your occupancy and your use of your space. And that tighter control will certainly make a big impact on your energy consumption. And so the whole control piece, I think, is something that's, that really has moved on, and is now getting much more traction in an industry that it's, it's been having really energy-efficient equipment. But if you just run it ridiculous, ridiculous the air price for seven, it's not going to, it's not going to help you.

15:46
Okay, and so you because you almost need a master's in some of the energy management software systems that you see nowadays and buildings, don't you? And I do feel a bit sorry for the facilities, people in facilities because they've suddenly got to get to grips with it. But if they do get to grips of it, they really do get to grips with that in the environment of their building, don't they?

16:14
Yeah, absolutely. It's important that they understand it doesn't need to, and, you know, they don't really need to know, the technicalities behind it. But what they need to understand is, what the whole objectives are, and why they're doing it. And I think, you know, the training that facilities managers are given when they take over a building and BMS engineer skills, and, you know, he spends a couple of hours with them, showing them this really complex system, and then walks away, I think trainings really important. And I don't know if you've heard of soft landings, but it's a process that's through the industry. And it aims to engage users, end-users, facilities, managers, and from the very inception of the design of the building, right through the process to where it gets handed over. So that they really understand why decisions are made on their building and what, what the other buildings supposed to operate. And that's really, really important. So that they then when the building is handed over to them, the go right, I understand no way we've done this, and how I need to operate my building. And I think that's really important.

17:25
I think that's a that is Yeah, I can see that being a key takeaway message from this, to be honest with you, because we see it from, you know, the end of life, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to do it, and they, and we then get brought in as consultants to help them manage those buildings, but I can sit there, it's that disempowerment, isn't it of not understanding and if your skill and expertise is not in the design of the fabric of the building, then why would you naturally understand straightaway how it works. And I can see what you're talking about massively helping people in facilities, and that's brilliant, that's really soft play.

18:14
Soft landings,

18:15
Soft landing, and two-year-old.

18:19
What's really good, as well as that the facilities team or the end-users are engaged in the process. And they say, Well, this is actually how I use it. You know, I use this space seven till 10 am. And I've used that space, three to 4 pm. You know, I'm pulling things out of the air, but then a designer can go right, okay, I can design that to control that flexibly? Or say, or do you see, you know, we do have evening events. So we need to be able to condition our servers or we only, we only operate in a morning on a Friday, for instance, getting all of that through otherwise, what engineers do and designers do, they just revert too tight and say, well, this is the kind of standard way we designed. So, this is what we'll do Monday to Friday, and this is what we'll do. Whereas it's really important to understand how an end-user uses the builder. That's really important when it comes to operating your building in an efficient and sustainable way. And I'm really surprised at how many people still don't get that.

19:28
Yes, so am I, so am I, which is why I can see how important to see the passion in you. I know this is audio, but I can see the gesticulation going on in the kind of passion that's coming through. What would you say that people are driven by cost or environments or, you know, when they come to you what was sort of one of the conversations around that is it, I just really want to have a really good system designed by you or I do people bring the environment and sustainability into conversations.

20:09
Yes, they do. And, but very often, when it's they start to look at cost, they take the short-term view, and go, oh, I didn't realize it was gonna cost me that much. But and people are starting to, you know, and change their attitudes towards that. So, most people will come to, to us because they want a really good system designed for their building. And, and they understand that will take time to engage with them and find out what they really want. And so, will design something for them, that will work for them. And inevitably, there's a cost discussion that goes on, and 99.9% of our projects have a budget that has to be adhered to. And sometimes the client’s aspirations, and exceed his budget, exceed the pocket her deepest pockets are. But for me the challenges is not to dampen that enthusiasm, a client comes to you what's possible, I want to have a really good system, I want it to be energy efficient, I want to I'm interested in the health and well-being of the end-users of this building. And but I only have a limited budget, you know, challenges, right? Okay, what can we do for that? And but, and different clients have different drivers. And if you're, if you're an owner-occupier, and have you know, a high wealth individual in your, in your house, you're not too worried about that you want the best, you want the best for you. But if you're running a commercial property, and you've got a service charge budget to keep to, then, you know, that cost as it cost as an issue.

22:07
Okay. And do you see people talk about carbon and talking about the ongoing, I guess, calculations for buildings? So, when they've come up against the barrier, it's going to cost us more to put this in? Do they? Do you feel that be they are still going Actually, we think about the carbon of, you know, carbon footprints or whatever if, and the business ongoing?

22:41
And then actually, yes, and no, yes and no. And they do know about it, they are interested in it. But I think, um, there's a lot of kind of misinformation. And people say, all this carbon calculation and, and then can you look at some paybacks for me, and you think it's, they think, you know, something that's a quick fix, it's actually quite complex, as you know, because there's lots of things that you've got to look at, and get involved. If you're, if you're, you're, you're really informing the client of what the whole lifecycle cost is, and what the whole carbon impactors. So, and our clients generally come to the party, if you like, with I want to reduce my carbon, and but when the capital cost starts to creep up, they go, right? Okay, I might not think about that too much, because maybe I'll sell this building in five years, or maybe we'll move out of here in five years. And what I am seeing now is things like much shorter leases. So they used to be when you signed a lease for a commercial building, you signed up for 15-20 years, and therefore that landlord had you in there and then that that gives you a much longer payback periods. Notice them do much, you know, you get much more flexible leases, there's five years, three years and do this what some, some lots of offline one year break for clients, because the market so it's so tough at the moment. And so, they're not necessarily somebody's all the things only going to sit there for maybe one or two years. They want to necessarily see the payback on that.

24:31
I guess it may turn around, I mean, I'm just now kind of hypothesizing about it but thinking if I was a business wanting to move into a building for a year, I would think okay, my energy should be said 130,000 pounds for electricity. 60 70,000 pounds for gas to eat it and then the rent is I don't know, I can't I but you would add that if you were looking at it, you would add the whole lot together. And if you found that your heating was actually 20,000 pounds, and your electricity was 30 40% of the hundred 30, so say 90,000 pounds, you could, then you would be happy for it to be paying slightly more in rent, which means that the person that's renting it out to you could put the thing, put the stuff in and make it more efficient. Yeah. And I wonder if that will start to trickle through with that kind of thinking. Because if I'm thinking that, and I know, I'm thinking from an environmental point of view, but we are looking at office space, it's Green Element, then compare your footprint. And so that's the kind of conversations I'm having with people.

25:51
Yeah, yeah, I'm starting to see that coming through. I think you're right; I think that will start to come through with a discussion with a landlord today. But who recognizes that his buildings not particularly energy-efficient, and they haven't really bothered about it before, because the tenants pick up the bill? But saying, right, okay, there's, we're not get some pressure from our tenants gone, what are you doing to reduce this, so they're now starting to look at investing in a bit better controls, looking at the systems that they use. And because they're not getting the no getting pressure.

26:23
it comes down a lot. It always surprises me how much of everything comes down to communication. And we're I mean, we're now talking about the communications between landlords and tenants on way, and the relationship that can be formed between them, and working together. And then it comes down to transparency. And I guess if a tenant is seeing that the person their landlord is putting more environmental processes in place for the building and then they can see that actually, their energy is going to go down on that, then there's a conversation to be had. And maybe that's where we're going to go is more transparency. Remember one of the first projects I worked with a client. And do you remember? People didn't like consultants looking at electricity prices in buildings, and I remember looking at a building and they were being charged something like 45.50 P, per kilowatt-hour, when in reality, it was about 1012 p per kilowatt-hour. And the landlord was so reticent to give us the energy bills. And then suddenly, we found out why. And then obviously, the client was like, what, we are literally being charged four or five times more than we should have been. And you don't see that anymore. But it just shows the journey that we were going on.

27:48
Yeah, that is much more transparent. No, and, no, there's much more tenant-landlord communication now. And there used to be a state in your landlord really didn't want to speak to these tenants anymore. And but we're seeing much more visibility, now, and transparency, which is good. This is a good thing anyway, to do.

28:10
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And I'm the key takeaways I'm taking from talking to you, if I was listening to this podcast is talk to your landlords, have communications with them, trying to understand how you can help them ensure that your building you're in is more environmental with your cost not going up. Either way. And if you have building management systems in place, and software to help you manage your building, go and talk to your landlord about how you can manage and run those systems. So, therefore, you are more in control of the processes that you have in your domain as it were,

28:53
yes, definitely, you know, get set up that line of communication with your landlord, whether that be through their managing agent or your regular landlord-tenant meetings, but definitely talk to your landlord about it. And if your landlord isn't interested in it, and we'll put real pressure on the in it, the need to get interested in it because this is a really important element of reducing energy costs. And our carbon footprint if you like, offices, hospitals, schools, all buildings make such an impact on energy usage. And on our planet. We really need to as a collectively where we can try and do something about that.

29:46
Are you finding the conversations have changed since COVID has come into play or the conversation still similar to what pre COVID?

29:56
Um, then probably the emphasis is a bit more on how do we keep COVID safe? As to how do we make this building energy efficient. So that has been that that has been more the driver. And what makes a building COVID safe sometimes flies in the face of what makes a building energy efficiency. So, for instance, operating in mechanical ventilation 24. Seven is a very good way of keeping your obviously the air quality high and less risk, but it's not very good for your energy bills. But so, there's that, you know, there's that there's, there's a balance is that there's a balance to be had with that, I think.

30:44
We've gone back to opening the windows, haven't we, I know a client of mine said that they actually got all their windows made to be opened again, because they had windows open at one end and the other end, so there was a free flow of air because they've been informed that that was the best way for them to do it.

31:04
I've been, I've looked at a number of buildings for clients who are keen to go back into their offices to see what we can do to improve that. And in some of the older buildings that may be converted were houses Victorian buildings that you see fcrn London and is opening the windows and having a thorough draft just like the Victorians mainly to do it.

31:26
Brilliant, I love it. We've not really talked about Energy Lab at all. And you are a B Corp?

31:35
We are moving towards B Corp, unfortunately, COVID-19 got in the way. And we had to shift focus a bit, as a lot of businesses had to do so. Right. Okay, we're going to get through this. So, it's not going away. But we've not advised as far as we would like to, we're still going to do that.

31:55
Yeah, in essence, that it's there. And it doesn't matter. It's a purpose-driven business at the end of the day, doesn't it? You don't need to have a badge to prove that. Um, and from a sustainability point of view? Do you practice what you preach?

32:11
Oh, definitely, definitely. And it would be really wrong not to. We do and we have, well, with COVID has actually shown us is that we don't need a big office. And we're reducing our office footprint, if you like, we're we always worked in a flexible way. But we're working much more flexibly now. And we've had a look at our suppliers with help of some of our peers. We've looked at some of the supply chains we use, for instance, for stationery and for maintenance equipment, that type of thing. And asking them the question to clear what are you doing what pose your business run, and really interrogating that. We've pressured the landlord to do something about the energy supplier, so we're all renewables. So, our own business processes very much so. But we're also conscious that the biggest impact that we have is through the designs we deliver to for our projects. And that's the biggest impact that we can make. So, we make sure that everyone is really aware of what the industry has to offer aware of products, everybody's trained and, but sustainable design is embedded in what we do. We don't do a design and then somebody does a sustainability check on it. It's added it on what we do.

33:44
Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for being on today, Marian. it's um it's always a pleasure talking to you. But I love Yeah and getting that knowledge. And I know we've probably only touched upon a tiny bit of what you guys do for NH layer, haven't we? And I feel I haven't done your service for all the work that you complete for clients. But thank you for being on.

34:08
Thank you. Well, it was great to share our enthusiasm for what we do with you. Thank you for that.