A reflection on our recent event, co-hosted with CoreNet.

On 29th January, I was fortunate enough to chair a panel discussion at our offices, hosted by Corenet, on ESG in leasing.

I was joined by four fantastic panellists:

• Laura Noctor-King, the Head of Sustainability at the Better Buildings Partnership (responsible for producing the Green Leases Toolkit and supporting documentation)
• Tom Mallett, a Director in Occupier Services and Sustainability Consulting from JLL
• Nick Chee a Director of ESG and Stewardship from AustralianSuper
• Adam Strudwick, a Principal in Interior Design from Perkins & Will.

Thankfully, the panellists were the ones who did the hard yards: they engaged with the topic and brought their expertise, insights and passion for the area and showed our audience – and me – why it needs to be at the forefront of people’s minds in any real estate discussion. As Laura said, “the planet is our client”; it’s too important to put on the backburner.

Some thoughts from the event follow:

• Upward trend: in 2025, 84% of central London transactions handled by JLL included green lease provisions. This is a remarkable figure, though the challenge is not just inclusion – and not just inclusion in the capital – but making physical and tangible changes on the ground. These provisions must not just be a tick box exercise. They need to reduce carbon, lower cost, and enhance a property.
• Prime, tier one, occupiers and larger institutional landlords are more aligned on energy efficiency and there’s some interesting practical solutions being utilised here. Tenants within developments are talking to one another about energy efficiency improvements and challenges they face, they are taking landlords to task and interrogating the data – which has become more widely disseminated and accessible – during and before taking a lease.
• Circular economy and end of term considerations: there’s been progress with the recycling and reuse of building materials and fit-outs, and there is a market – more mature in some product areas – but there must be more consideration of this. There’s a huge amount of embodied carbon in properties and the waste is embarrassing.
  
  More needs to be done to hold businesses to account and to minimise the amount of material that goes to landfill. Material passports and specific lease drafting will help with this, but market-leaders and trendsetters need to help raise awareness so as to facilitate a real practical change. Flooring systems, for example, have a mature second-hand market, and this is a start, but other elements lag behind. Material passports (the identification, description and tagging of individual items for reuse in subsequent buildings) need to become more prevalent. On top of this, more thought needs to be given to initial construction such that the asset can be disassembled, relocated and reused.
• Companies are not islands: isolating and entrenching yourself by putting up barriers when it comes to green leases / ESG provisions will be detrimental for everyone. Instead, parties should collaborate and engage with one another.
  
  A landlord can introduce better systems and technology if it has better – and more – data to work from and inform decision-making. Buildings and developments built with ESG at the forefront will bring about greater cost savings and efficiencies and, as a corollary, attract better occupiers. King’s Cross is a case in point. The calibre of occupiers across the estate is first rate. The location plays a part of course, but the quality of the buildings and infrastructure makes a huge difference. When those types of occupiers start working with their landlords and each other, the rewards are bigger.
• A sustainable building is a busy building. Buildings should be used fully in order to achieve optimal energy and cost efficiency and to minimise wastage.

Green leases are a vital instrument for driving change, but they’re not a silver bullet. They are a tool in the toolbox but need to sit alongside other forms of collaboration, engagement and, most importantly, actual operational changes, efficiencies and savings. The Green Leases Toolkit, for example, helps to start discussions and foster collegiality but its effectiveness will only be fully realised if all stakeholders commit to the overriding principle: limiting climate change.

Our panel shared their thoughts and challenged one another but one thread was constant and unanimous: without collaboration, change will be more limited, slower and less effective. It is only by working together, that owners and occupiers will make a real-world difference.