The problem is worse. Innovate UK’s ‘The Building Performance Evaluation’ study monitored the operational performance of 50 non-domestic buildings and found nearly every building had higher carbon emissions than predicted during the design phase. In some cases, total emissions were 10 times the Building Emission Rate calculated for Part L compliance.
In addition, building system failures present a material risk to business operations. ServiceMaster Clean revealed as part of its study of insurance claims by commercial property tenants that escape of water amount to 36% of claims, fire damage 24%, and heavy rainfall caused by the unpredictable weather accounted for 23%. Many of these cases involved undetected building systems failures as the cause or reason for high cost claims.