CHALLENGE
St James Quarter (SJQ) is a new mixed-use, retail, and leisure-led scheme in the heart of Edinburgh. The scheme is the biggest retail and leisure district in the city with 1.7 million sq. ft of restaurants, cafes, bars, shops, public spaces, and leisure venues, the development was completed in 2023. With this comes high expectations, as SJQ's stakeholder's prioritise delivering excellent environmental and social sustainability.
Nuveen and their joint venture partners have been keen to ensure that sustainability is at the heart of the development, through planning and construction and into operation. Savills Sustainability Consultancy has worked with the client since 2020 to ensure there is an active sustainability action plan in place to deliver against these expectations as the asset has transitioned from development to operational.
SOLUTION
In partnership with the client, the property management and the site team, Savills Sustainability Consultancy helped to design and deliver a bespoke Sustainability Strategy for SJQ during 2023. We believe that a successful sustainability strategy understands stakeholder priorities, business requirements and seizes the opportunity to improve and build on good work already being undertaken.
SJQ had great foundations, initiatives, and a highly energised and enthused project delivery team, the approach to sustainability however, needed contextualising within the market. To ensure success, development of a strong governance model was needed to support the development and delivery of the bespoke action plan & strategy in order to embed a proactive and focussed method of managing environmental risks and opportunities into the organisation.
RESULTS
The outputs were a bespoke Sustainability Strategy & Action Plan tailored to the asset to drive performance and also ensure that SJQ is meeting and exceeding market requirements.
We delivered a Peer & Legal Review to ensure that the asset is in line with the market and forthcoming legislation. An Environmental Baseline Assessment considered current performance against industry benchmarks (e.g. REEB) across all appropriate metrics and a materiality assessment was undertaken to engage with stakeholders and help prioritise key sustainability issues.
These deliverables allowed us to design strategic themes, objectives, and targets, a suitable governance structure with representation from all levels of management, and also a fully costed sustainability budget and deliverables schedule for SJQ.
Some of the key deliverables as part of the Sustainability Strategy include:
- Net Zero Technical Assessment
- Climate Risk Assessment
- Local Needs Analysis
- Social Value Reporting Framework
- Quarterly ESG Reporting
In March 2024, Savills Sustainability Consultancy was appointed to help support these the wider implementation of the strategy by the client.
In addition to the delivery of this project in 2023, Savills Sustainability Consultancy worked with the site management team to design and implement an ISO 14001 certified environmental management system unique to this asset. The asset was certified in 2022 following third-party independent audits. Environmental management principals are now fully embedded across the site reducing environmental impacts and risks. We are also working on implementation of ISO 50001, the energy management standard during 2024.
The site was also certified to the BREEAM In-Use Commercial green building certification in 2021 and will renew certification in 2024. The scheme is currently one of only a handful ‘Excellent’ rated schemes within the UK.