Top developer to speak at AJ Retrofit Live

Partridge, who joined King’s Cross developer Argent in 1990 after studying architecture at Cambridge, became the firm’s joint chief executive in 2006 and also served as managing partner from 2012-2018.

He is a former chair of the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), immediate past president of the British Property Federation and a member of the Construct Zero Advisory Board of the Construction Leadership Council.

In September, it was announced that Partridge would help oversee the development and implementation of the industry’s long-awaited Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (NZCBS) as chair of its recently convened governance board.

The NZCBS will be a single agreed set of science-based performance targets for different building types and is backed by the RIBA as well as fellow industry bodies the Better Buildings Partnership, the BRE, the Carbon Trust, CIBSE, IStructE, LETI, RICS, and UKGBC.

AJ Retrofit Live, a one-day conference held at 155 Bishopsgate in the City of London on Wednesday 23 November, will bring together architects, their built environment colleagues, developers and others to identify the best retrofit and circular economy practices and discuss the transformational changes needed to upgrade the built environment in line with whole-life carbon principles.

It will also hear from architect Níall McLaughlin, whose new library at Cambridge’s Magdalene College won this year’s RIBA Stirling Prize as well as other leading industry voices such as Indy Johar, Kate Macintosh, Kunle Barker, Immy Kaur of Birmingham-based community platform Civic Square and Enlai Hooi of Danish architect Schmidt Hammer Lassen.

The coalition behind the NZCBS recently launched a call for evidence from architects and others, asking for them to supply performance data for their buildings. 

Firstly, the coalition is seeking operational energy data - specifically in-use consumption data from the best performing existing buildings, and modelled performance data for buildings in design or construction. Secondly it is seeking embodied carbon data from both new construction and retrofit projects.

Both types of data will enable the coalition to establish benchmarks for different building types. Participants are invited to submit data via the Built Environment Carbon Database (BECD) by the deadline of 16 December.

Speaking at the beginning of the month, Partridge said: ‘If the real estate industry and built environment is to seriously address its impact on climate change, a universally adopted Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard is essential.

‘We are looking for built environment professionals to contribute data from a number of different asset types to develop a single, agreed methodology, and for all stakeholders in the real estate industry who will be using the standard to get involved to formulate it appropriately. Please contribute to our call for evidence.’

Partridge’s fellow NZCBS governance board member, Duncan Baker-Brown, is also due to speak at AJ Retrofit Live. Baker-Brown, a circular economy expert and architect is currently at COP27 in Egypt alongside RIBA president Simon Allford and fellow RIBA sustainability advisor Smith Mordak.