Key takeaways
Embedding sustainability unlocks long-term business success
Green strategies boost resilience, profitability, and market appeal.
Strong ESG practices build trust and credibility
Transparent reporting strengthens relationships with investors and clients.
Compliance and innovation go hand in hand
Sustainable solutions help meet regulations while driving growth.
Practical completion of the landmark development that is set to become Hill Dickinson’s new home in Manchester is imminent, with fit-out works due to commence this month. With the prospect of moving in to St Michael’s in the summer of 2025 now tantalisingly close, excitement is already building across the firm, in particular among our Manchester-based colleagues. And the wait already promises to have been worth it, as we’ll be moving into a building that meets the key sustainability criteria that we, as a responsible business, have specified as necessary to justify the move.
Environmental and social sustainability considerations have become essential for many companies and especially professional service firms, and is paramount to Hill Dickinson’s commitment to become a more responsible business.
After the pandemic, the sustainability agenda rapidly gained momentum as our priorities shifted to focus more on health and wellbeing and living within planetary bounds, which irrevocably transformed the needs of a typical office environment. In simple terms, occupiers were taking less space due to flexible and hybrid working, but that space became more expensive. Occupiers are now more exacting of landlords in terms of their requirements from a building and, by spending more money on fit-outs, occupiers are delivering higher-specification space to satisfy social and environmental sustainability criteria.
Holding ourselves accountable as a responsible business means that sustainability is at the heart what we do, and it was a fundamental part of our decision-making regarding the move to St Michael’s. We believe that the outstanding credentials of St Michael’s will be transformational for our business in Manchester.
St Michael’s will deliver the following:
Colleague expectations - our colleagues have waited patiently for a move to new offices long before we exchanged agreements for the lease on St Michael’s in July 2023. Once in, we‘ll be working in the one of the most sustainable human-centred buildings in Manchester, which is why it‘s been worth the wait. Colleagues will be working in an office that is conducive to working collaboratively both within and across teams.
St Michael’s was designed in accordance with the scientifically backed WELL-Building Standard, a standard that focuses on enhancing health and wellbeing through the built environment. The space at St Michael’s will provide communal break-out spaces, better air ventilation and filtration systems together with amenities that will attract colleagues to the office to be more than simply a work space. Colleagues, particularly those living in city centre apartments, demand a healthy and sociable work environment that has their wellbeing at its core. These members of staff were the first to want to return to the office as lockdown conditions eased during and after the pandemic, but to address the increased focus on personal wellbeing, the office needs to be much more than it was historically.
Client expectations – as an international law firm, many of our teams need to pitch both to retain and win work in competitive tenders. Most tender documents will have lengthy sustainability requirements. Our new offices will, for the first time, allow us to tender exclusively for work to be undertaken in the Manchester office and amply demonstrate compliance with social needs and environmental impact requirements in respect of the office we occupy.
By way of example, energy use in buildings account for approximately 18% of all greenhouse gases globally. Demonstration of efficient consumption of energy is therefore of paramount importance to our clients. A building like St Michael’s with an Energy Performance Certificate of A together with a BREEAM rating of outstanding, a 5* NABERS rating and certification for Net Zero Carbon, means that we are moving forward in Manchester very quickly in terms of reducing the environmental impact of our office spaces. In addition to minimising the impact of operation, St Michael’s was also constructed in alignment with the UK Green Building Council principles, including minimisation of the environmental impacts during construction, or embodied carbon.
As the sustainability agenda continues to progress, even professional services firms occupying relatively modern offices, ie those built in the last 15-20 years, may struggle to satisfy these requirements. This is why we see St Michael’s as being transformational for the Manchester office.
Compliance – it often feels like the regulatory burden on businesses, and especially professional services firms, increases daily. Many of these regulations are around sustainability-related issues. St Michael’s will deliver solutions to the challenges that regulatory compliance provides.
Investors and developers
This all means that developers will need to deliver buildings with outstanding green building credentials to attract professional services firms to their developments.
When professional services firms consistently account for the largest business sector taking up office space, the pressure is on developers to deliver spaces that fulfils occupiers’ long-term social and environmental sustainability requirements to satisfy investor requirements.
Many funds are clear in that they are only interested in acquiring newly built offices because they know that a building’s investment value is underpinned by its occupational tenants.
We’ve also seen professional services firms move to newly completed buildings purely to discharge sustainability requirements.
Traditionally, asset management of these investments would revolve around increasing rents, avoiding void space and delivering services efficiently to manage service charges, but now environmental and social wellbeing is one of an asset manager’s biggest concerns as they look to retain and recruit new tenants to underpin the asset’s investment value.
With MIPIM arriving soon, the Hill Dickinson team is looking forward to discussing St Michael’s and our responsible business experience with all those who want to hear more about our journey to our new office.
