The UK 's Environment Agency is the largest environmental protection agency in Europe , employing around 10,000 people including approximately 750 at its national headquarters in Bristol . As a result of staff expansion and mergers of different government agencies, the headquarters is located in three buildings on two sites (Aztec West and Westbury-on-Trym) up to three miles apart. With leases on the existing offices due to expire, the agency wanted to investigate the opportunities available to it when considering its future head office requirements and, in particular, the environmental and social implications of any changes.

The agency appointed PB to advise on its strategic planning in late 2001. A deadline of January 2002 was set so that the review could be presented to the agency's chief executive and any budgetary implications be taken into account prior to the start of the financial year in April 2002. We were to report on the following:

• Options available within the greater Bristol area to build an exemplar green office with a BREEAM¹ excellence rating
• Options available from existing or partially developed offices and their associated BREEAM rating
• Economic, environmental and social impacts of changed travel arrangements and planning constraints on employees' travels to work and business travel arrangements
• Social impacts on a new location from a community perspective and the ability of the agency to attract administrative employees from the local area.

All outputs were converted, where possible, into carbon dioxide emissions so that the study was as objective as possible. The various options were then graded on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 equating to excellent), at which time the less precise social and employee outputs could be incorporated. The use of a grading system made our review complimentary to the financial review being conducted by property consultants, with both studies providing weighted conclusions for a number of short-listed options.

Getting Started

Our first task was to review and analyse information held by the Environment Agency, including a staff survey from the previous year that provided valuable information on:

• Individuals' preferences for travel to work, type of office environment, extent of remote working and business travel
• Employees' post code data
• Car policy
• Staff diversity in terms of age, grades and job types
• Future employee growth plans.

A list of sites to be included was then drawn up and agreed to with the agency based on the findings of their property consultants. The sites identified for study were:

• Option A. A site within Aztec West, where 70 percent of the staff is currently employed. Aztec West is an “out-of-town” business park conveniently located adjacent to the M5 and M4 motorways, but with poor public transport links, and car parking and congestion problems due to heavy car usage.
• Option B. A brownfield site in the centre of Bristol next to the main railway station. This site had planning consents and was surrounded by other “green” buildings, but had limited parking.
• Option C. A brownfield site adjacent to the “park and ride” railway station in North Bristol , but without any planning permissions or land purchase arrangements in place.
• Option D. A brownfield site to the west of Bristol . This site had planning consents, reasonable links to the M5, and the potential to include a passenger rail link on an existing freight line.
• Option E. A greenfield site reasonably close to the existing location with planning consent for new facilities.

BREEAM Considerations

To achieve a BREEAM excellence rating it is highly beneficial to:

• • Have a brownfield site located adjacent to a rail, transit or bus interchange with sufficient scope within the site to improve the ecological character of the area
• • Design the facility as a naturally ventilated building where the majority of occupants will also benefit from proximity to natural light during daylight hours.

The two sites that met the first criteria were Options B and C; however, they were not without their challenges. Option B (the Central Bristol site) was up to seven miles away from the existing sites and, for a workforce that had become accustomed to travelling to work by car, could pose real challenges in terms of congestion, car parking provision, the possibility of a congestion charging scheme similar to London's, and a practical requirement for a large number of employees to move from car to public transport. Option C (the North Bristol site) had no planning consents and would require significant negotiation with adjacent users/owners of the site for any development to be realised. As a new development, it would also have car parking provisions that were less generous than existing developments, although not quite as stringent as those in central Bristol .

A key element of our advisory work was the review of travel to work arrangements and business travel patterns whilst at work. These studies, which were particularly important in the case of the sites some way from the current sites, included post code analysis to assess whether incentives to change to walk, cycle, use public transport or car-share were appropriate. In conducting this analysis we:

• Applied appropriate modal shift models to different locations
• Assessed public transport corridors and timings
• Assessed various what-if scenarios, including the impact on decisions if a light rapid transport line scheduled for 2007 did not progress and the impact of congestion charges
• Assessed business travel options, including policy changes, reduction in employer provided cars and allocation of car park spaces, and the associated additional costs of travel.

The travel options were also evaluated in terms of carbon dioxide emissions to provide a more accurate assessment than that included in the BREEAM model.

Figure 1: This figure shows the current public transport accessibility for the Ham Green Option. The darker area (shown with arrows) represents good access.

Challenge of Presenting Analysis Results

The complexity of analysis at such a strategic stage of the agency's evaluation required some clear and visual means of communication if the results were to be presented effectively. The data and analytical models were integrated into a geographic information system and the results illustrated using thermographic techniques with different colours associated with different bands of results (Figure 1). This method enabled the agency to gain a spatial awareness of the results (e.g., mode availability or CO₂ emissions relative to existing employees' post codes) and it provided a valuable check on assumptions (for example, whether it was appropriate to weight the analysis by including the post code of someone who worked at head office but lived 300 miles away!).

Thermographic techniques were helpful in comparing the carbon dioxide impact of various sites. The grading system was of more relevance when comparing sites using the thermographic plans to substantiate the number of points awarded.

Integrating the social analyses into the grading system was challenging, not because of statistics available—there are extensive data and research on changes to employment patterns and salary relative to area—but because of determining the weighting to apply to such data by comparison with the calculated carbon dioxide emissions or the visual reproduction of “hot spots.”

Such “hot spots” were, for example, associated with car parking and/or public transport provision and award of points was conditional on assigning a mitigation strategy to each “hot spot” or area of difficulty. If the mitigation strategy was considered to be relatively weak (for example in the case of future political decisions relating to congestion charging or LRT provision), this was taken into account in the allocation of points.

The mitigation strategies also addressed one of the agency's main concerns, namely what options were available to address the heavy provision of employer-provided cars and associated issues of travel to work and car parking. Clearly, if a company car is provided, there is less financial incentive available to encourage commuting to work by rail and, accordingly, the sites with good public transport but poorer car access become less attractive to employees. These situations are relatively easy to model using both financial and CO₂ outputs and were used in the study to provide a baseline for future consideration given any change in location. Other considerations also included use of teleworking to reduce floor space and associated CO₂ emissions connected with travelling to work.

Figure 2: "Boston Box" configuration of analysis results

The points matrix was finally brought into a “Boston Box” configuration (Figure 2). This was a useful decision-making technique and clearly demonstrated the advantages of the city centre site (Option B) as the best long-term solution in spite of the changes to travel to work patterns and political unknowns, such as congestion charging or LRT provision.

It also forced consideration of how to improve the environmental context of the existing location (Option A). Although a development on a brownfield site at this location would not achieve as high a BREEAM rating as Option B), it did represent a reduction in CO₂ emissions. In addition, the application of various mitigation strategies, such as a minibus to ferry employees from the nearby rail stations to the office, and other initiatives could further reduce emissions if appropriately managed.

Acknowledgements