The end of last year saw the launch of Ska Rating. Developed and led by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Ska Rating benchmarks a building’s sustainability by specifically focusing on its interior fit out. Emma Kay joined Pringle Brandon’s Kevin Goldsmith for a day at the office to find out how the system works, who’s using it, and what it could mean for the workplaces of the very-near future.

10:30am,
Pringle Brandon HQ, London EC2

On a typically rainy Monday morning, onoffice wends its way through human commuter traffic, heading towards the Old Street offices that architects and workplace consultants Pringle Brandon calls home. I am on my way to meet Kevin Goldsmith, a Ska assessor. Ska, which launched in November last year, is an online tool that measures how environmentally sustainable an office-refit project is. Kevin’s first appointment of the day is to go through all the online paperwork, and while he’s doing it, he explains a little more about the scheme: “In April 2009, Pringle Brandon, and a host of other companies, including Skansen, Savills, hurleypalmerflatt, Sheppard Robson, DTZ and careyjones, began to conduct a pilot study, bringing together their individual areas of knowledge and expertise.” Kevin is also a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) assessor, a similar system that monitors how environmentally sound ‘base-build’ projects (those that start from the ground, not using any existing fabric) are. He’s quick to point out “Ska won’t replace BREEAM – it is another tool that simply runs alongside. The key differentials are that Ska is only about the fit out, it’s free and it’s flexible.”  Enthusing about the future of Ska and the others it could help, Kevin tells me that “what we are doing could be easily expanded into retail and education, now we can see that there’s a need to take it further.”

12:00pm

Kevin meets with Richard Finnemore, project architect for one of Pringle Brandon’s latest schemes, a new workplace for City insurance brokers RFIB. The RFIB was the first project to be Ska-monitored and, though the  process began after the detailed design phase, it consequently won a silver Ska rating. “It became a real learning process on materials,” says Kevin. “Using the BRE Green guide, which rates materials in terms of sustainability and life cycle, we now know precisely which suppliers can give us credible ‘green’ materials. The credits for Ska ratings are based on a number of criteria – pollution, waste, water, materials, transport, wellbeing, energy and CO2. The ratings (gold, 75 per cent; silver, 50 per cent; and bronze, 25 per cent) are measurable against the credits that a client selects. “We of course suggest target areas for the clients that are in some cases easy wins, but they are things that, if remedied, will pay dividends in terms of fulfilling necessary criteria,” says Kevin. “It’s about planning to do something, then making agreements with contractors and designers to ensure things like waste management are handled responsibly. The most important are areas for consideration are demolition salvage, office lighting (to reduce energy consumption) and green materials.”

I ask what happens if the clients don’t ‘play ball’, and am told: “It’s about the design team and contractors proposing relevant items, creating a common goal. If everybody follows the processes it ultimately should make things easier. We check insulation, furniture, taps, literally going through the specification and checking that the right and approved items have been delivered, and then supplying evidence of this. You have to be very impartial – if a client doesn’t meet the criteria, they can’t have the credit. We need to know that it will stand up.”

3:30pm, RFIB Group, London EC3

Kevin’s afternoon meeting is with Stephen Grant, company secretary for the RFIB, at the company’s new Gracechurch Street HQ. A key topic of conversation is the sustainability element of the project, and Kevin is keen to fill me in: “We write sustainability into everything we do. It’s very much entrenched in the company culture. Ska gives our clients something tangible and reassuring; they can be benchmarked against their peers, and we, to some extent, can show that we are doing what we say we will.”

By all accounts, the client at this table seems delighted, reporting the finance director to be “ecstatic” upon hearing the project came in under budget, despite all its green credentials. “It’s not just about the fit out,” says Kevin. “Once we’ve finished, the client is left with a good product, working in an environmental sense, and through clever design, the staff also benefit. The flexibility of the space, desk placement and so on, are always a huge considerations, and we try and make sure that everyone has a view out of window or into an atrium. We’ve found a holistic way of measuring how good a fit out is. For us, it’s about the client and the contractor and how sustainable they’re hoping to make the project. Ska has been needed by the industry, so why can’t designers and architects use them to go through projects?”

5:00pm, The cold streets of EC2

On the rather cold walk back to PB’s headquarters, I enquire about other projects and am filled in: workplaces for both asset management firm Henderson and Microsoft were both nominated for BCO awards, and Microsoft’s Reading offices went on to win the Best National Workplace Fit Out award. Kevin animatedly describes the Thomas Moore Square project in Docklands, London, for Land Securities, for which they recycled the hard finishes in the building into public spaces. “We realised that there were six buildings and little public space for people to sit, so making it habitable was key. We also thought about the wildlife in the area and how that might evolve in terms of birds starting to live in those trees. We’re always thinking of how best we can do things; our green ethics have developed over the years. We’re just trying to take that thinking forward even further, to make everyone a bit more aware,” he concludes.

For more information on Ska Rating please visit the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors www.rics.org/ska