The Hillbreak Podcast
Listen in to our occasional Podcast series where we explore topical ESG issues for real estate markets.
Podcast Series: Key ESG trends for real estate markets
The first episode talks about the key trends driving the ESG agenda and then introduces our picks for the three principal topics for real estate organisations to be prepared for this year, in both public and private markets. The following episodes dive into greater detail, discussing each of those themes in turn, invariably highlighting some of the key risks and opportunities to look out for.
6. Strategic ESG Topics for 2021
In this episode, Miles Keeping leads an online discussion with the Hillbreak Team. Amie Shuttleworth, Caroline McGill, Helen Fisher and Jon Lovell discuss their top strategic ESG topics and predictions for 2021, covering Net Zero Strategies, Sustainable Finance Markets, Diversity and Inclusion, and Impact Investing.
5. ESG Pitfalls
Hillbreak co-founder, Jon Lovell, reflects on some common pitfalls to be avoided when developing ESG strategies:
- Avoid the temptation to chase ESG ratings as the sole driver of your approach
- Avoid disconnection between your ESG strategy and core investment processes
- Don’t miss the ‘S’ and the ‘G’
- Mind you don’t fall at the transparency hurdle
4. Climate Risk and Net Zero
Jon, Miles and Helen discuss the fast-moving climate risk and net zero carbon agenda, asking how strategies, decision-making and engagement within the value chain are changing as a result.
3. Better Reporting And Disclosure
Helen Fisher, Miles Keeping and Jon Lovell consider the evolving state of non-financial reporting within the sector. How can real estate organisations learn from leaders in other sectors as it seeks to become more tuned into society and its global challenges? What advancements might we expect and hope for as legal requirements, data technologies and stakeholder engagement practices push asset managers harder on transparency? And what attitude should Boards and Execs have on the subject, in both public and private markets?
2. Ambition & Leadership on ESG
Helen Fisher, Miles Keeping & Jon Lovell discuss market leadership on ESG. Talking points include:
- Board engagement and external expectations on ESG
- Striving for market leadership
- The need for industry coordination and alignment
- Taking occupiers and stakeholders on the journey
- Eco-anxiety, operational pressure and mental health impacts
- Take-away messages: expediency, collaboration and thoughtfulness
1. Top 3 Strategic Topics for 2020
Hillbreak Founders, Miles Keeping and Jon Lovell, discuss their top three strategic topics for 2020: dealing with climate risk and the pursuit of ‘Net Zero’; more reflective reporting and disclosure; and the urgency of Executive leadership on responsible and impactful investment.
With such a broad and fluid ESG agenda ahead of us, we doubt we’ll ever run out of things to say on the subject, so if you have suggestions for specific topics you’d like us to tackle, perhaps with you behind the mic with us, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
We’d love to hear what you think and would be delighted to hear any suggestions for topics you’d like to hear us tackle in future. And if you’ve got a burning opinion you’d like to air, then why not join us behind the mic on a future episode? Just get in touch if you’d like to get involved.
Guest Podcast Appearances
We’re also privileged to have been invited to guest on a number of recent podcasts, which you can also listen to below.
Needless Construction and Architectural Arrogance – Jon Lovell joins Bisnow podcast on tackling the climate crisis and the future of work
Hillbreak joins participants from FORE Partnership, Alstria REIT and WSP to discuss how changing patterns of work and new expectations of offices coalesce with the imperative to arrest the carbon impact of development.
“Because they have been designed with a kind of architectural arrogance, that doesn’t respect the fact that our climate is changing, those changes in climate will make those spaces unserviceable and uninhabitable,” Hillbreak founder Jon Lovell said. “We have built, in my opinion, a huge amount of stock that will be obsolete much quicker than people envisaged at the point at which it was designed.”
Better Buildings Partnership talk to EG Property Podcast about the vital need to close the sustainability skills gap
In this episode of the EG Property Podcast, EG editor Samantha McClary is joined by Jon Lovell, co-founder of sustainability consultant and trainer Hillbreak, Louise Ellison, group head of sustainability at Hammerson and chair of the Better Buildings Partnership, and Sophie Carruth, head of sustainability at LaSalle Investment Management, to take a look into the wide and widening sustainability skills gap in real estate and what measures are being taken to try and bridge that gap.
The trio are playing an integral part in helping to narrow the skills gap by their involvement in a new ESG training course led by the Better Buildings Partnership.
Operational Ratings – Jon Lovell joins Paul Stepan and Robert Cohen from Verco
Paul Stepan, Head of Policy, Strategy and Compliance hosts the discussion between Robert Cohen, technical director at Verco and Jon Lovell, co-founder of Hillbreak to give what we hope is a rounded briefing addressing key questions:
– What are operational ratings and what approaches have been taken to develop these?
– What are the benefits and costs of operational ratings?
– Where do operational ratings sit on the disclosure spectrum and what is the role of regulation in this?
– Why don’t we have operational ratings already and should organisations be putting effort into acquiring them?
Jet Zero – Jon Lovell appears on the 50 Shades of Planning podcast
The reduction of net emissions of greenhouse gases to zero by 2050 became law in the UK in June 2019. As the Committee on Climate Change recently noted though, whilst “initial steps towards a net-zero policy package have been taken this was not the year of policy progress that the Committee called for.”
The pandemic is a chance to reset the economy and to bring together the seemingly dichotomous nature of greener versus faster, but what would ‘building back better’, if it isn’t just vacuous sloganeering, mean for planning.
Sam Stafford puts this question to Hugh Ellis, Director of Policy at the TCPA; Jon Lovell, co-founder of Hillbreak; and Claire Petricca-Riding, Partner & National Head of Planning and Environmental Law at Irwin Mitchell.
We’re always happy to collaborate with others so if you’re interesting in having a Hillbreak voice on your podcast, then we’d be delighted to hear from you.
