Part One: Hybrid working, cost pressures and net zero – what’s the biggest challenge facing organisations today?

The way organisations use their buildings has changed dramatically over the past few years. Hybrid working has altered occupancy patterns, energy costs remain under pressure, and increasingly ambitious sustainability targets are forcing organisations to rethink how they manage their estates.

Yet many of the decisions being made about office space, building services and decarbonisation are still rely on assumptions rather than evidence.

This is the first article in our series, From Hybrid Working to Net Zero: Making Better Estate Decisions, based on a discussion hosted by Duncan Hopwood with David Maddison, Senior Workspace Consultant at Abintra, Steve Loughney, an expert in smart building technologies and environmental control systems, and Tony O’Keeffe, Chief Operating Officer at OPNBuildings.

There’s a link to watch the webinar recording at the end of this article.

The opening question posed to the panel was deliberately broad.

What is the biggest challenge facing organisations trying to balance hybrid working, cost pressures and net zero commitments?

Although each panellist approached the issue from a different discipline, their answers pointed towards the same conclusion: organisations are still making major decisions without the reliable data needed to support them.

Decisions based on assumptions

David Maddison believes many organisations continue to manage their estates using outdated perceptions of how buildings are occupied.

“Hybrid working has fundamentally changed how space is used,” he explained. “But many organisations are still managing their estates based on assumptions rather than actual utilisation.”

The consequences extend far beyond empty desks.

Without understanding how space is really being used, organisations risk maintaining larger estates than they need, consuming unnecessary energy and incurring avoidable operating costs. At the same time, they may still struggle to provide the types of spaces employees actually want to use.

“The organisations making the greatest progress,” David said, “are those that start with data. Once you understand how your buildings are actually being used, you can reduce both cost and carbon at the same time.”

The problem isn’t just data – it’s disconnected data

Steve Loughney agreed that good information is essential, but argued that many organisations already possess large quantities of operational data. The real issue is that it often sits in separate departments with little coordination.

“Energy teams, sustainability teams, procurement and facilities management frequently operate independently,” he observed. “Each may be collecting useful information, but they’re rarely looking at the whole picture.”

This siloed approach means opportunities are missed.

Building systems, occupancy information, energy consumption and maintenance data all have the potential to complement one another, yet organisations often analyse them separately. Without a shared strategy, individual improvements rarely translate into meaningful organisational change.

For Steve, this fragmentation is usually a symptom of something larger.

“It points to a lack of an overall, holistic plan,” he explained. “Without that overarching strategy, it’s difficult to ensure everyone is working towards the same objectives.”

Decarbonisation carries exactly the same challenge

Tony O’Keeffe highlighted that similar issues are emerging as organisations invest in net zero programmes.

Across the UK, many building owners are replacing traditional heating systems with heat pumps and other low-carbon technologies. These are significant capital investments that will influence operational performance for years to come.

Yet Tony believes too many of these decisions are still being made without sufficient evidence.

“Major investment decisions are being made with unreliable data, or sometimes with very little data at all,” he said.

That creates unnecessary risk.

Whether the decision involves reducing office space, upgrading ventilation systems or investing in renewable technologies, reliable information enables organisations to understand where improvements will have the greatest impact and where investment will deliver the strongest return.

“It’s about getting the right data to inform your decision making,” Tony explained. “That reduces risk and puts organisations in a much stronger position to reduce energy use and achieve their sustainability goals.”

Better data creates better conversations

One of the most striking themes to emerge from the discussion was that data should not be viewed as an end in itself.

Collecting more information is not automatically beneficial.

Instead, reliable data provides a common language that allows different parts of an organisation to make better decisions together.

Facilities managers can understand how buildings are being used. Sustainability teams can target genuine opportunities to reduce emissions. Finance directors can prioritise investment with greater confidence. Senior leadership can make strategic decisions based on evidence rather than intuition.

In short, good data enables organisations to move beyond opinions.

A shared conclusion

Although the discussion began with three different perspectives—workspace utilisation, smart building systems and building performance—the panel arrived at a remarkably consistent conclusion.

The biggest obstacle facing organisations today is not technology.

Nor is it a lack of ambition.

Instead, the challenge lies in ensuring that decisions are informed by accurate information, shared across organisational boundaries and used within a clear strategic framework.

Hybrid working has changed the way buildings are occupied. Net zero is changing how buildings need to perform. Rising operating costs are increasing the pressure to improve efficiency.

All three trends point towards the same requirement: organisations need a far clearer understanding of how their buildings are actually performing.

Only then can they make confident decisions about reducing costs, improving workplace experience and meeting increasingly demanding sustainability targets.

In the next article in this series, we’ll examine one of the biggest misconceptions in workplace management: why most organisations significantly overestimate how much of their office space is actually being used.