Bricks & More: Unlocking Real Estate Value

Real estate sustainability is all about building future value w/Georgia Elliott-Smith

• Adrian Strittmatter • Season 1 • Episode 3

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In this provocative episode of Bricks & More, Adrian Strittmatter is joined by Georgia Elliott-Smith – engineer, environmental activist, and founder of consultancy Element Four – to explore why sustainability isn’t just a moral imperative, but a commercial one.

Georgia argues that real estate’s current approach to ESG is flawed, often more about brand image than actual impact. But here’s the catch: in a world of changing economic and environmental realities, growing regulation, investor scrutiny, and tenant expectations, shallow sustainability is also bad business.

Key talking points:

🌍 Why net zero pledges are misleading – and how they risk long-term value

🏛️ How policy, litigation, and transparency are reshaping what investors demand

📉 Why greenwashing damages trust, brand equity, and asset performance

💥 Why embracing real change (even when it’s uncomfortable) is a competitive advantage

If you think ESG is just a checkbox – or if you’re serious about making your assets future-proof – this episode will change the way you think about value.


Georgia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiaelliott-smith/ 


Adrian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianstrittmatter 

Saentys: https://saentys.com/ 



Adrian Strittmatter:

Welcome back to Bricks More. Today's episode is a really ambitious one because we're going to talk about how we can really design long term resilience, stand out from the competition and create value, but also save our planet along the way. Deploying ESG initiatives in real estate is no longer just a nice to have or even a given, it's an unequivocally key driver of value, resilience and long term profitability. So to uncover strategies that turn sustainability into a competitive edge, debunk the myths, and reveal how ESG can future proof your assets while delivering serious returns, I'd like to welcome Georgia Elliott-Smith. Georgia is many things. A corporate sustainability advisor, public speaker, environmental engineer, campaigner, and an entrepreneur. With over 30 years of experience, Georgia has worked with some of the biggest names, like Patrizia, Grosvenor Estates, Nike, Amnesty International, and even the Bank of England. Helping them turn sustainability from a box ticking exercise into a real driver of value. A disruptive sustainability approach blends best practice with activism to push industries and the government towards real change. So to find out how real estate can go beyond greenwashing and make sustainability truly profitable and what does it take to turn ESG into a competitive advantage, let's dive straight in. Georgia, hi. Welcome to Bricks and More.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me.

Adrian Strittmatter:

It's, I'm, I always have this moment of excitement when someone accepts the invitation to come on the, on the podcast. Yes. Oh, I can't believe they want to do it. So I'm really, I'm really thrilled that you came on. in the introduction, I mentioned that obviously we're gonna, we're going to be talking about a really important topic, which is sustainability, ESG, all of those things, which you're going to talk us through. You have been active in this industry for a really long time. What got you going? Why that choice or this choice?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Well, I mean, I'd love to say that it was, you know, super calculated, you know, and I've always wanted to be in construction, but at the end of the day, it kind of came down to money, if I'm really honest. So I did an engineering degree, I studied environmental engineering, and, And I sought out sponsorship. And at the time, you know, in the 90s when I was at uni, there was quite a lot of money sloshing around in the construction industry and they were looking for young people and, and doing these very generous sponsorships. So, I actually had been offered, sponsorships in the water industry, in the utilities, in, um, TFL, London Underground. And, the best offer came from Bovis Construction. So I ended up getting into construction that way. But actually, as it turns out, You know, really construction and property for me, it really is in my blood now. You know, I realized that I feel such an affinity for it because growing up, my mother, although she was a news journalist and a print journalist and so on, she always made more money from developing property than she did from her journalistic career. And so we spent our whole childhood moving from one building site to the next. You know, from one project to the next. So I feel I almost have cement in my blood. You know, it's, It's one of those things. And I do love, I love being involved in property. You know, something really tangible that you can walk down the street and point at and say, I was a part of that. You know, it feels great. And, I just adore the industry.

Adrian Strittmatter:

and we've, we've worked together on a couple of projects, both, I would say asset based and corporate based, and I've always sort of really enjoyed working with you because you really bring that level of insight, a level of pragmatic solutions, but also real passion, that passion. Is it taking a bit of a challenge in the current context? How do you keep up the energy, the passion and the drive in the current context?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

being in sustainability is a roller coaster. I mean, it's such a roller coaster. It's incredibly emotional. and you take a lot of hits and there are some incredible highs as well. You know, when you do some great work or when some new regulations announced that you feel is very progressive, you know, that stuff is, is fantastic. or when you meet a client or get on a project that you feel is just really aligned with your values and that's. really fantastic. But there are a lot of crushing lows. And I think that it's something, it's not a career for the faint hearted at all. but I'm incredibly passionate about it. You know, I feel deep in my bones, a sense of justice around, you know, what is right, what's the right thing to do. And, and I also, as an engineer, I really relish the technical challenge about how to deliver. better buildings, better buildings for everyone, you know, not just for one particular group of people, but how can we make our real estate just relevant and vibrant and really deliver for communities whilst being technically exciting, you know, the best it can be, and just a great place to be. So there's, there's many angles to it that I find exciting. I would say one of the most challenging things is you do sometimes feel like you're pushing water up a hill, you know, when you're trying to bring genuine sustainability into the mix rather than greenwashing, which is so prevalent. It's so prevalent and it's, it's insidious. And I think there's a real challenge in the sustainability delivery. sector, and it is an industry sector on its own, you know, sustainability

Adrian Strittmatter:

mm,

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

around those people, you know, what, what are people pushing for? Are they pushing just for tick boxes and badges and, you know, the image of being good and green? Or are they genuinely interested in shifting the dial on sustainability? And do they even understand what we mean when we say sustainability? Or are they talking about ESG, which is a very different thing. So, you know, there's It's a real challenge. Sustainability is a challenging sector to be in. And I think the topic itself is incredibly challenging because it's so broad. It's so far reaching. You know, one minute you can be talking about local communities and, you know, equitable access to land and real estate. And the next minute you're talking about. Bees and bats and newts and then the next minute you're talking about embodied carbon and, you know, low, low embodied carbon and very, very technical calculations and net zero pathways and things and, and then ESG reporting itself is an entire business sector and that's That's very different. So very, very wide ranging subjects, and you can't be an expert on all of it. and I think it's been very interesting to see how the sustainability industry has evolved over time. Because I've been in it from the very beginning.

Adrian Strittmatter:

the very beginning. Yeah. And do you think, looking at that sort of experience that you've had over the years and thinking about how the last couple of years have been very challenging for real estate for numerous reasons, are you for 2025 and beyond more in a upbeat, positive mood or more in a, okay, sort of roll your sleeves up. We've got more work to do than ever before.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Yeah, the second, I would say. I think we've seen, we've seen some fabulous commitments that have been made, and we've seen some interesting progress. On projects and interesting claims being made. A lot of companies, organizations have set net zero targets, you know, now really is when the pedal's hitting the metal. It really

Adrian Strittmatter:

They need to achieve them. Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

You know, a lot of organizations. are now having to back take a backstep on their original ambition because they're realizing just how much work they've got to do. And it's been a lot trickier than they expected. we're also seeing. You know, we've seen some incredible progress over the last sort of three years, I would say, in developing regulations, bringing in reporting regulations, a lot more interest in ESG and markets, finance and how, how these financial markets and funds are performing. And we've seen, amazing performance of ESG funds, which ultimately is what drives all of our targets in industry. You know, we're all trying to impress ultimately the money, and get the money. And that has finally become somewhat linked to ESG performance. And so that's been very heartening to see. But we are globally now in a very precarious situation. We're seeing a lot of, backwards sliding on ESG. You know, all the,

Adrian Strittmatter:

Are we gonna mention it?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

I'm, I'm going to really try and rein myself in here. But you know, all of this, All the statements coming out of the US, you know

Adrian Strittmatter:

the decommitting.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Yeah. And actually taking a very aggressive stance against all the work and all the progress that we've made. And I think that has been incredibly disappointing, not at all surprising, I think, from the voices they're coming from. But it's a shame because I think we're now seeing a lot of people think, oh, well, that's past now. We can now stop pushing. It's okay to take our foot off the pedal and to spend that money elsewhere or to spend our energy elsewhere and move on, to whatever the next thing is. And I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what sustainability is and what it can do for your business, really, because it shouldn't be a cost overhead.

Adrian Strittmatter:

That's really interesting because I think that's the, the, when we had the initial conversation, part of the problem is the definition and how it can be applied to a specific industry, which is the build industry or real estate. How would you define it in the context of real estate, sustainability specifically?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Okay. So the two things that I talk about, Most with people at the beginning of whenever I do workshops and, you know, sessions with, with clients is just getting to grips with these terms. So sustainability and ESG are fundamentally different. And I think that people have used those terms interchangeably. Sustainability. Is a state in which you can run your business so that it is resilient into the future and it can run sustainably in the long term. And what that means is taking a rounded approach to looking at all of the risks, looking at all of the opportunities. And historically those have just been financial considerations. What we know now from things like, you know, wars, interruptions in supply chains, you know, scarcity of resources or various scandals that are taking place, across the world is that if you fail to take account of environment or social issues, then you're exposing yourself to an enormous risk and actually your business will no longer be sustainable. So we can see in the construction sector, for example, that Wars and, you know, aggressions or issues like even when the, the boat got stuck in the Suez Canal a couple of years ago, you know, things happen that interrupt supply chains. And then if you're not taking account of that, if you're not looking at things like climate change adaptation, the fact that many of our cities are going to be struggling with flooding in the future, if you're not looking at that, you are fundamentally dooming your business to economic success in the future. If you're not looking at social aspects, like, diversity, now again, taking away the rhetoric from the States. We know that diverse businesses are better able to deal with shocks and they're better able to deal with certain markets and to appeal to wider audiences. Now, however you choose to frame that, and I think, some businesses or some, narratives may have gone too far in certain directions, that's for everybody to decide for themselves. But we know that diversity generally is a good thing and that if you are too homogenous as a business, you open yourself up to all kinds of risk. So when we talk about sustainability. Again, I think there's a common thread with people when they talk to me about sustainability, usually what they mean is environmental management, and they have not really grasped the breadth of sustainability and the fact that we are not just talking about you being green. That's a very narrow perspective of what we mean, and I try to open people's minds when we talk about sustainable, to say, If you just focus on environmental issues, you're still not getting it because then you are seeing this as being something separate from your business. Sustainability is how you run your business at its core. It's taking into account wider issues than just the financial balance sheet and understanding all of the different factors that are going to impact your ability to be profitable and successful in the long term. And I think historically, this is a very long answer so bear with

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

historically when we've just said sustainability and we've meant environmental management, what that tends to lead to is then spending a lot of money on environmental initiatives that have no real long term relevance to your business, and they end up just being case studies or show projects, you know, tokenistic initiatives that you run as an overhead on a particular project. And then it ends up getting ditched because you realize that it's not economically

Adrian Strittmatter:

Viable and sustainable.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

not economically viable in the long term. So therefore, That is not sustainable. So I am really an advocate for going through your sustainability plan, like a dose of salts and cutting out all of those things that actually are costing you a lot of money that you do not have the resources to maintain that are not directly linked to your ability to run a successful business in the future. And if you are currently financing things that you do not have a very, very clear picture of how that's leading to financial success in the future, then you shouldn't be doing

Adrian Strittmatter:

shouldn't be doing them. Yeah. I mean, there's this, obviously, you know, age old saying in property, it's about location, location, location. Should that just be maybe extended a little bit to include obviously the location element, but to be talking about context, context, context, because if you're not cognizant of a location, then your property is going to fail. If you're not cognizant of the context in which you're developing something, then you're basically running forward with a blindfold.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

you will be buffeted around by the forces. you know, and people will come in and they'll take your market share and they'll take your clients and they'll, you know, you'll get kicked off frameworks. And there are all kinds of things that are risks to your business if you don't take into account these wider issues. And I think climate change is a big one and it's. There's one direction of travel in terms of the way that regulation is going when it comes to things like, climate particularly because we've got big international commitments on climate, that are coming through into our regulations. Now, you can drag your feet over that, or you can steal a march on the competition, you can get ahead. Now not in a way that is, You know, I think, I think there's been an awful lot of greenwash because we've known now that as long as you can speak the language of sustainability, speak the language of climate and net zero, you can kind

Adrian Strittmatter:

in the forms.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Yeah, you can kind of get away with, saying, making great claims. What we're seeing a movement towards now is, is Proving it is being able to have that data to hand and being able to demonstrate, you know, what are the kilograms of CO2 per meter squared emitted by your building in operation? You know, what are they? Do you know that? Because you are going to need to know that. And so. smart clients are understanding now that those assets that they're holding on to that are really outside of their ability to operate in a net zero position, either today or in the future, they're stranded assets effectively, and they will become stranded assets. And so those assets are being offloaded, you know, and there's a Wise clients are now starting to really look at mapping out things like the performance of their buildings in hard numbers. And we're not talking here about certifications. I'm not talking about whether or not you can get a BREEAM excellent on it and things like that. Now they have historically, they've historically been the measure that we've used, you know, in order to say whether or not a building is green. Now we're looking at absolute performance metrics for buildings. So whether it has a certificate or not, I want to know how much water does it consume when it's in normal operation or

Adrian Strittmatter:

that's a really interesting point then, so if we take a few other soundbites, like the UK has got some of the oldest sort of housing and commercial stock in Europe apparently, so a lot of what is commonly potentially known as brown buildings, how do you, well how do you efficiently or cost effectively raise the bar of that real estate stock that you have in the country?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

well, Yes, that is the billion dollar question, um, and we are working very hard across the sector on working out how to do that because you're absolutely right, our legacy real estate is in pretty poor shape and we don't have enough carbon left in our carbon budget to knock them all down and build new buildings, new efficient buildings. So the biggest challenge that we are facing is this retrofit challenge and this is, Now, there's a huge amount of work going on with progressive organizations like iStructE and UKGBC and all kinds of different organizations coming together, Leti is another one who've been doing some work on this for a number of years, who are So, you know, it's easy to get discouraged about the fact that government regulation isn't there. It really isn't there. If we were to continue to build according to the building regulations, just at a compliance level, we are going to miss net zero, at 2050 by a mile. We are never going to achieve net zero by 2050, which is a legally binding target for this country. and so Professionals are now coming together and have been for a few years to essentially write some voluntary building standards to say, if you are interested in genuinely achieving net zero for your real estate, and that that is going to yield a, an economic benefit to you in the future, because your portfolio is going to be net zero aligned and that in due course will. Yet will retain and increase its value rather than becoming stranded or discounted. If you want to be part of this journey, then these are the voluntary building standards that you need to meet. You need to do X, Y, Z. What we're desperate for is for those voluntary standards to be brought into regulation. Because what tends to happen with these higher level thought pieces and these voluntary standards. It's only those with the very deepest pockets will be able to afford it. And of course they lead from the front, but it takes a long time for the remaining 99 percent of the property sector to catch on. You know, and all of the, you get the big London consultants who are driving forward these initiatives, but the, most of the industry is small regional practices who are not part of those working groups and are being asked for the same sort of cut and paste developments, you know, that are just compliant with regs. We need to bring that up. And I feel the only way to do that is to change the regulations, which is why I'm now so active in litigation and lobbying. because these Pilot projects and test cases, they're very nice and they do move the dial and they, they demonstrate to us what is possible. They set the North Star.

Adrian Strittmatter:

but they don't become the standard.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

But unless they become the standard for everybody, then we are always going to be facing greenwash. With people saying they're doing things that they're not able to demonstrate they're doing. And the 99 percent of the industry will continue doing what is just the minimal requirements. And that is no way for us to achieve the standard.

Adrian Strittmatter:

I want to come back to one point that you made, why is it that sustainability is such a confusing topic? When we had our initial conversation, you said a lot of people miss the why, when you've kind of eloquently put in the sense that, well, otherwise you'll have a discarded portfolio of buildings. That's a pretty easy thing to understand, why do you do it, otherwise you're not going to be able to sell on your buildings, or you're not going to be able to continue to operate. If that's the goal, and there is a financial or value metric there, why do people still get lost in, in what initiatives they should do, what measures they should take on, why is there still that confusion?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Because I think there's a massive re education that's required across industry. You know, most of our industry is older people like me, who most of their careers have been able to get away with doing a little bit of environmental management, meeting regulations and thumbs up everything's great, you know. link between asset value and certainly the idea of an asset becoming potentially stranded on the basis of carbon emissions has really only become a reality since the Paris Agreement of 2015. And, and actually. Even since 2015, really only we've been talking about that in the last, you know, most progressive people, maybe the last five years or more recently, the last two to three years, it's a very, very new conversation and this direct link between the assets that you're developing and their value to the market and also the proliferation of ESG funds. So if we go right back to funds and institutional investors and so on. That huge growth in ESG funds has been a relatively recent phenomenon. And so this is really the first time that we've been able to point directly to this link, clear link coming down the track. It's still not even here now. You know, it's really not. This is still something we're saying is going to be happening over the coming years, is that If you invest now in making sure that the refurbishments and the new buildings that you are working on today are net zero aligned, that will pay dividends in future, but you need to be the sort of client that takes the time to understand that link. believes in it, that follows through with it, and that is willing to perhaps not just follow the crowd with all of the shiny certifications, but go a little bit deeper and look at a whole strategy rather than just individual building by building. And again, I think that's been a problem with our industry is we've often just gone building by building, you know, what is the market rent I can get on this building? What are the badges I can throw at this building in order to make it appealing? And then we. start on the next building. And it's almost like everything starts from scratch again. This challenge, particularly around how to get the best value out of sustainability and how to really link your economic success with what you're doing environmentally and socially, that, that, requires some strategic thinking. And what, what I do with my clients is I work across a whole portfolio. I look at a whole strategy and I say, right. Here are the liabilities within your portfolio in terms of a sustainability, you know, forthcoming regulations, performance, and so on. What are we going to do with them? you know, a lot of people have been offloading that stuff, you know, and some buildings are going cheap. You know, there's a problem there. Not

Adrian Strittmatter:

Not my problem, kind

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

my problem. Again, you've, also with that, you've got a very varied industry in terms of how long people retain their assets because a lot of people will just, you know, refurbish something and offload it or get planning and offload it. And they flip these buildings very quickly, in which case they don't have that, vested interest in retaining the

Adrian Strittmatter:

responsibility over the long term. Yeah. Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

but it is those clients that are invested in the longterm in their assets that are really starting to think strategically like this. And I think we can all. We all need to pay attention to that because there is this direction of travel that, we need to be aware of and we need to be preparing for and taking a much more strategic approach across our whole business rather than just looking building by building.

Adrian Strittmatter:

specifically then on, on, on actions that you mentioned, someone comes to you with a portfolio or single assets. what are the kind of first things, what are the steps that you'll go through? So you said you'll identify The buildings that have got problems. We've also discussed, because we've worked on a portfolio together for a German bank, not every building has the capability or the capacity to become, you know, net zero. So how do you select which are the things that you're going to work on to be able to have, firstly, the maximum positive impact on the environment, but then also to be able to take it out of the discarded pot?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

I think there are things that you can do with buildings like looking at their flexibility of use as well, making them super relevant to the community. So there's some really interesting conversations going on at the moment around, real estate consolidation and looking at, you know, We all know this, we've got buildings sitting everywhere, empty, and yet communities really struggling to find places, there's shortages of, of space for local groups, for everybody struggles with, with property, with finding the right amenities for all kinds of different things in communities. And I think working out across your portfolio, how buildings can become more relevant to communities and maybe find their place, not in carbon. But in some other way of realizing value. So can we make our building super flexible? Can we, if we can't get this on a net zero footing today, if we, if we can't throw enough money at it, you know, there's not enough money in the pot to make this net zero as a commercial office block. Could it be retrofitted into something else? Could it be made relevant in a completely different industry sector? Could we open it up for different variety of uses, which makes it then potentially bankable in a different way? So broadening out our view of what we do with real estate. When I think about commercial offices, I mean, we've got this classic thing, you know, we've got the city of London, it's empty at the weekends. There's nobody here, but we have communities on our doorstep. You know, we could be making these buildings relevant during, the evenings. We could be making them relevant during weekends and holidays. You know, we could be doing a lot more with the real estate we have to activate it and make it valuable beyond carbon. And I think the carbon conversation

Adrian Strittmatter:

what's stopping us do you think?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Oh, it's a legacy, isn't it? I think we've got insurance, we've got Planning? we've got all kinds of different blockers. When it comes to blockers, because everybody, when we have all kinds of conversations, you know, blue sky thinking about what we could be doing with buildings, there are always blockers. But my Encouragement to people is to say. Okay, but how are we going to overcome that blocker? Let's not just say, well, we can't afford it. or, well, planners won't allow it, or, well, the current regulations don't, you know, enable that or whatever. Right, great. We've identified what the blocker is, if that is a significant blocker that's stopping you from doing something that genuinely is sustainable and progressive and makes real estate more relevant and more valuable, how are we going to overcome that blocker and that could take the form of lobbying, it could, you know, going straight to our representatives and saying we need you to seriously consider these issues because this is standing in the way of more sustainable communities of a more vibrant industry. Um, We could, start looking at things like building industry groups, pilot groups around testing some of these concepts and taking the proof, you know, the proof of the pudding, taking it straight to other developers, the rest of our community, designers. But again, that sort of thinking only tends to come to the front when you've got a, um, time, you need time to think about these things and time usually means money And that usually means the sorts of clients who've got fairly deep pockets. I think there's a big responsibility on those sorts of clients to be using the privilege they have there of that time and of that money. To create, to work much more on lobbying so that that brings all of that information

Adrian Strittmatter:

that others can do.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

that takes the burden away from other smaller operators who perhaps aren't in that space don't have that ability to do that shifts the whole market. So everybody benefits. and I think Open source conversations, open source data, sharing initiatives, having a strategy, you know, I can't stress that enough about strategically what are we doing and I think not enough people are thinking strategically, we're kind of just thinking historically from just one job to the

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah, definitely. I think what's often taken into account is that sustainability is a cost center and not a profit center. How do you really show that this is going to give you a commercial, visible, endorseable, commercial edge? What other, we've talked about the flexibility, what other sort of elements spring to mind of really cool things people can do in this space? Because there are so many cool things you can do in this space. And I think, Sometimes we get bogged down in the rhetoric or bogged down in the arguments about, Oh, it's not possible, but what is possible? What's, what are the examples of really cool things that people have done, which have, you know, really sort of, yeah, given them that competitive edge.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

I, well, I cannot understand why Passive House isn't a bigger deal in our industry. I can't understand it because it's so exciting. It's so interesting and it is. Such a brilliant, design principle, rather than a certification, just a way of thinking about buildings.

Adrian Strittmatter:

if you, if you could explain it, yeah, explain, please explain.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

So the Passive House Principle has been around for decades, and this is something that really started in Europe, Passive House, we still spell it in the German way, you know. Traditionally. but there, there's a Passive House Trust in the UK. It is a way of building that improves the fabric of the building and thinks holistically about the building from the very beginning. It thinks about things like the thermal mass, it thinks about the orientation of the building, it thinks about the surface area of it, reducing the surface area so that you reduce the amount of heat loss surface for the building. You build you build in a way that is high, high quality as well because you need to achieve a certain level of air tightness within that building. It means we're kind of going back to a clerk of works principle of building whereby you have to make sure there's no thermal bridging, you have to make sure that your insulation is tip top, you have to make sure that there's no gaps. Now, What you get from that is, inherently, it does end up being some percentage points higher in terms of build cost, but you don't have as many problems with defects. You get a much higher quality build and then you end up with fewer problems like damp or cold bridging, and mold and all kinds of things that traditionally happen a lot in our buildings because we don't have great quality control on site. It also, what it means for the longer term of the building is that you are massively, massively reducing the energy required to heat and cool the building. So there are a lot of misconceptions around Passive House. A lot of people think, well, you're just creating a sealed box and that's not healthy. That's not what Passive House is. You know, these myths have grown up over time and they've got a life of their own. I really encourage everybody listening to this to take a look again at Passive House, because what it's talking about is no uncontrolled leaking of air. Controlled ventilation is the, is the name of the game. That's what you want, is so you know exactly how much ventilation you need for your building. It's all controlled. And the In the longer term, ultimately the principle it's feeding into is the idea that we cannot achieve globally net zero, we cannot address climate change without overall reducing our energy consumption. So again, this is something that we need to just switch our mindset. We talk a lot in property about decarbonizing energy sources. So things like slapping lots of photovoltaics on buildings or getting green, buying green energy tariffs, and all of that is important. We do have to decarbonize energy, but all of the growth that we've seen in green energy across the world has not reduced our energy consumption at all. In

Adrian Strittmatter:

it's to fuel it.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Yeah. We're just burning more and more and More energy. We fundamentally have to stop burning so much energy. We have to reduce overall energy consumption. And the only way of doing that is to reduce, and bear in mind that the construction industry and the, the operation of buildings is directly responsible for, 40 percent of the carbon emissions. For the UK, the statistic is the same globally. So, we are performing exactly the same as, you know, global real estate. Our industry consumes 40%, or emits 40 percent of global CO2. We have got to start reducing The amount of energy that we consume. Now, that is a challenge, but I think principles like passive house are so important. And another one that I'd like to talk about as well is retrofit regulations because the, the retrofit market at the moment is a real wild west. And this is something that I think we've got to get a hold of nationally. Um, Yes, for everything. And I, and the biggest challenge that we're going to have is residential property. So really, you know, commercial property and public sector property, all of that is the low hanging fruit. Really, if we think about it, you know, it's housing that is going to be our greatest challenge, because obviously, with so many millions of individual owners, you really don't have control. Um, where we have these bigger buildings that, that should be easier for us to tackle, so we can be testing principles on that. When we look at, um,

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah, why is it World West then?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

oh, what the retrofit

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

because there are a lot of small operators who are not doing very good quality checked work, you know, are slapping lots of, impermeable insulation layers over buildings that were originally designed to be breathable, and then that creates condensation and mold. We're really lacking good national regulation over what a good Healthy retrofit looks like and this I think is a, is a missed opportunity nationally because I think the retrofit industry could be a source of massive industry growth. We could be. training up millions of new people working in retrofit. When you think about the amount of building stock we've got that needs to be tackled. this is a source of innovation that we could be exporting to other countries. You know, if we really smash this retrofit challenge, if we really get progressive on it, this is an exportable industry. It's a source of enormous employment of economic growth, and of managing to get hold of our energy and carbon emissions as well.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Is a country or someone doing that well?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

There are some very interesting things going on, so, UK Green Building Council is doing some great work on this, Leti is as well, what they are striving to do and they've released, I encourage everybody to take a look and to join those groups because they're, they're doing some amazing work. they are pulling people together. They've written retrofit standards and they are now lobbying government to get those brought into regulation and I think the whole industry should get behind that. Um, and we need as well a solid national investment strategy as well from government on how these things are going to be financed. And the, the idea that investing in this is an investment for the health of the nation because a massive amount of burden on the NHS comes from poor quality buildings, and that it's an investment in our future as well, in innovation and growth of our sector. To

Adrian Strittmatter:

a point that I know that we wanted to discuss today. We've talked a lot about sort of personal responsibility, professional responsibility of developers, but then we're also talking about the framework. And I know that sometimes we talk about insufficient framework, but in some instances We've also discussed the fact that the framework is there and then you have to take the government to task as well, which sounds crazy, to remind them or to challenge them or to take them to court. Why is that the case? Why do you have to do that when it's when the framework is there?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Well, there's a few reasons. So I, I'm now, I call myself a legal activist. I Love this part of the work that I do. It is very exciting very vibrant and always changing And I think it's the sort of work that creates change at scale is challenging government so fighting dirty is the group that I established and working with a journalist and a campaigner called george mombio and fellow director steve hind Who's a green councillor? we are Bringing legal challenges to government, and to the environment agency, the regulators, to challenge the fact that they are not moving fast enough, that there are holes, there are gaps in regulation, that there is an inconsistent application of different environmental regulations and aiming to get greater ambition in our regs. Now, that is necessary because politics, you know, political narratives change all the time, and the focus gets taken away from ambition in certain sectors. You can see even this week, you know, suddenly, the government's talking about taking funding away from One area of government spending and putting it in another that happens all the time. And so it is really important that if you are passionate about progress on environment or social justice, you need to keep the pressure up. And there are so many holes in environmental regulations that, we see every day. You know, the principle of polluter pays is really fine words, but it isn't the case in practice. We know that the polluters do not pay. And I know from 30 years ago, I was giving talks to the board at Bovis saying, you know, if we pollute, we're going to get caught out, we're going to get fined.

Adrian Strittmatter:

and you didn't,

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

We don't, you know, we don't everybody knows you can.

Adrian Strittmatter:

still

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

don't. I mean, you really struggle to point out those polluters who are truly held to account over the harm that they've caused. Even now, 30 years on, you know, even, so we all know that these global commons of climate, of water, of land, of health, human health, you know, these things are not necessarily protected by the regulations

Adrian Strittmatter:

they're finite.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

They tie up industry in lots and lots of red tape, and they don't really move the dial in terms of measurable difference. So, what is important to me is making sure that we keep the pressure up on government, we keep them answerable, we make sure that they follow through on the things that they said they were going to do. And I think this actually is industry friendly, because some people have said to me, Oh, you know, this makes you an enemy of business, doesn't it?

Adrian Strittmatter:

That was going to be my,

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Yeah,

Adrian Strittmatter:

it's going to be my next question. Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

I don't see it that way because I, the, the clients that I work with, the consultancy teams I work with all the time will be tearing their hair out saying, I wish I could justify spending money on this thing, I wish that I could, Do that, but there isn't the business case there, that it's not regulation. I don't have to do it. I spoke actually,

Adrian Strittmatter:

interesting.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

I, ended up speaking to a, had a wonderful conversation with the CEO of an. one of the UK's biggest publicly listed companies. He was saying to me off the record that he lobbies for carbon taxation. Now he can't say that publicly, but he lobbies for, for carbon tax, a universal carbon tax, because he believes fervently decarbonize the business. But, while he can't draw that clear line between I'm going to spend 10 million pounds on decarbonizing this production line and getting rid of single use plastic and, and, and, and, and turning all of my fleet, you know, away from fossil fuels, etc. He cannot demonstrate that that is required. You know, by, by legislation and therefore can't invest in it or can only dabble in it rather than really go for it. And so what he wants is across the board, if we all had to pay for our carbon emissions,

Adrian Strittmatter:

Then it wouldn't make

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

be, invested, we would be able to go to, the bank and ask for loans in order to decarbonize our businesses. It would just make very clear financial sense.

Adrian Strittmatter:

because I think you, you said one word, which kind of made me sort of tick a little bit, which is he believes, mm-hmm. Haven't we gone and maybe some elements of rhetoric in the current sort of context, but is it really about believing? Don't we know that we need to do something now?

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

I would hope so, but daily I would say my conversations are still in business, is why should we do this? so I don't think the conversation really, I don't, I don't get. a great deal of traction in business when I talk to people about doing the right thing.

Adrian Strittmatter:

I don't, yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Because I think, I think at home, we all understand doing the right thing. You know, we want to do the right thing. We want to be great parents. We want to be good friends. We want to take care of our local community. But I think when we come to work, we're measured on different behaviors. And I think that there is a fundamental mismatch between the people that we want to be and then the people that we're rewarded for being at work. So there's Again, when I talk about strategy with my clients, some of those very early workshops are about who are you, who are you, your, your DNA as an organization, what are the values and the principles that you want to live by, that you want to instill in people. And are those the values and behaviours that you are rewarding financially? Or are you saying that you value certain behaviours, but financially rewarding different behaviour that's actually destructive? So let's be honest about that. And I really believe in honest conversations. I want people to tell me sometimes, you know, I think what you're saying is complete BS. You know, I think, I don't agree with that. I don't, I, I, this won't work for us. Because it's very easy to get people in a room nodding their heads, you know, and you end up with a room of nodding dogs all going, Oh yes, yes, we totally agree. And then they leave the room and go and just do business as

Adrian Strittmatter:

Usual business as

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

we really need to get down to brass tacks about what is the world that you want to create? Who are you as an organization? What makes you different? And I think for, you know, for you with the work that you do, it's the same conversation, isn't it? It's about what is this narrative? What is this? Who are you? And is that really the, how you're showing up in the world? and if it's not, that doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a person existing within the prevailing system, you

Adrian Strittmatter:

context as well.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

how are we going to change that system to reward the behaviours that we want to see and diminish the behaviours that are harmful? How are we going to do that?

Adrian Strittmatter:

I think that clear link, as you've mentioned on many occasions during this episode is the link between doing good and being able to apply that good to actually multiple value metrics and showing how within real estate we create destinations which are going to be valuable or have worth for a whole range of stakeholders and audiences. And even if you are a developer who then flips it on, well you're flipping on or selling on something that has cachet, that has resilience, and that has sustainability.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

would love to see, I would love to see agents, so the agency market really getting hold of this, really understanding, and I do some CPD training sometimes for, for, um, you know, agents who are, Involved in advising and marketing buildings, getting them to understand and build this into the conversation about not just it's got bream excellent or whatever. It's

Adrian Strittmatter:

Yeah. Tick, tick, tick. Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

this building is resilient. It is relevant for the future. Here are its. kilograms of CO2 per meter squared. Here's its water consumption. This building exists in a drought prone area, which is what the whole of the southeast of England is. It is our area that we're currently sitting in, speaking from, is very, vulnerable to drought, and yet we're not paying attention to the amount of water that, you know, in BREEAM even, you don't have contextually a good measure of how much water your building is consuming. You know, we're still installing bizarre technology like dual flush toilets, which have been proven to be far more water consuming than others. You know, there's all kinds of like micro conversations. I get Very geeky about things like toilets, you know, and I end up. having hilarious conversations. But you, you know, we, we, We fall back too easily on certifications and I think the conversation now needs to evolve beyond that into how is this building going to be a genuine asset for the future and let's shout about that, let's make that the gold standard around saying I understand this building and I know that it's going to be a great one for you to occupy and I know that once you buy it, it's going to retain its value long into the future because it's got XYZ features and these Are the things that are going to be regulated in future so you can buy this building knowing it's gonna retain its value.

Adrian Strittmatter:

And then one, I had one final question, in the coming years, do you think that the initiatives, the actions and the advice that you're going to be giving your clients and the real estate industry is going to be more led by carrot or stick or a bit of both? Definitely some carrot, I think. They need the

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Um, carrot or stick? I think it's a little bit of both. Mm-hmm I think it's mainly stick, if I'm honest. I think. There's some carrot though, there's definitely some carrot. I think the, the people who've, who are most, educated, you know, they've educated themselves, they've spent the time to really get to grips with this topic and do their research. I think they understand the carrot. I think most of the market still doesn't understand the carrot. I think they still mostly think that this is, you know, chuck a bit of money at some marketing and some greenwashing and we can make it appear good. They need the stick. They need the stick to raise standards across the market because there will always be people in industry, whatever industry you're in, who will just, work to compliance and sometimes not even that, you know, if we're honest. So, we need to raise, you know, the rising tide carries all boats, you know, so we desperately need to improve regulation. And for that, we need all of those people who are interested, engaged on this topic. They need to understand that just doing an initiative on your building isn't enough. It's not enough. It's nowhere near enough. You need to be lobbying, you need to be rolling out these initiatives across industry, you need to be pushing for greater ambition. Because we have to raise the standard for the 99 percent of the sector that is just working to compliance. So that's, that's the stick bit. But I think the carrot is there, particularly if you are connected more directly to the institutional investors and the, the funds, you know, the, the money. If you're the closer you are to that sort of publicly listed company, the, the, the markets like that, and the, the big ESG funds, there is very clearly a carrot there. Now I was advising. Ironically, I suppose some would say. I was consulting recently with a Saudi property development firm who historically had absolutely no interest whatsoever in sustainability or ESG. No interest. And self declared no interest. However, They are now very keen to start working with international partners. They are starting to get interested in international finance. They want to be involved with JV partners in other countries and to start expanding into new markets. In order to do that, they have to participate in ESG reporting. And they need to understand sustainability. They need to understand this conversation. And that's the carrot is that they're starting to get to grips with the fact that if you want to build a resilient, sustainable

Adrian Strittmatter:

portfolio. Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

you have got to get comfortable with this stuff. You've got to learn. And I think if you want to fast track through all of the Wasted time and money and energy that we have expended over the last few decades. I think getting to grips with what sustainability really means. So, being honest about the marriage between, environmental and social initiatives and their economic reality. You know, being very honest about that conversation is Absolutely essential and stop just virtue signaling and throwing a load of money at badges. they have their place, they definitely have their place and they link to ESG reporting as a, as a metric for reporting. But we've got to go beyond that and expand our thinking into what is truly sustainable.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Passionate, passionate conversation. I really, I mean, we could keep going for, for hours and hours. I think it's, I'm, yeah, thrilled to have had you on the, on the podcast. I think it's, a massive eye opener, but also I think a really good way of having a. Yeah, a clear roadmap and understanding the terms and why we're doing it and that there is, there is gain and it's not all about the costs and that there, there is definitely a huge upside here. So Georgia, thanks so much for coming on the, on the podcast.

Georgia Elliott-Smith:

Thank you. It's been a great conversation.

Adrian Strittmatter:

Thank you very much.