Spreading
excellence

Sharing best practice
across our properties

Our commitment to Responsible Property Investment is well illustrated through the development and continued improvement of our Responsible Property Management (RPM) Programme. We do not simply apply best practice management techniques to a handful of flagship properties, our RPM programme covers all properties under our management.

RPM Programme
Programme Coverage
Programme Enhancements
RPM Case studies
BTPS Family and Joint Ventures
2007/8 Target Review
2008/9 Targets

RPM Programme
High quality risk & safety management has been the cornerstone of our approach to the management of our property assets for over 15 years. Key to this strategy is the appointment of good quality Property Managers and our specialist consultant, HW Wood, all of whom have been given clearly defined responsibilities for delivering a proactive risk management programme.

In 2007 Hermes set the challenge for our PM’s to focus on waste and energy management as key priorities. For many years, with the support of our consultant Upstream, our Property Managers have gone through a steep learning curve, leading to a culture change which allows them to meet the high standards we set.

We are pleased to report that the result of this drive has been very successful and not only have we increased the size of the portfolio which measures and monitors energy and water consumption, and manages waste, but we have seen improvements in the performance of the buildings in relation to these impact areas. Through our successful risk and safety management, our excellent insurance claims experience has enabled us to negotiate insurance rating reductions for the majority of occupiers.

We believe that our RPM programme is a benchmark for the industry in terms of property management. Through continuous development we ensure it is both innovative and challenging. It is extremely productive in terms of delivering sustainability improvements and serves as an essential management tool for our PM’s.

The diagram below shows the main components of the RPM programme, how they link with our RPI Challenges and what monitoring and reward processes we have in place.

RPM Programme Coverage
Our RPM programme covers all properties under our management. The degree of implementation does differ according to our level of control at each property. We cannot, for example collect utilities and waste data for FRI properties as these are not controlled by our Property Managers (PM’s). However, at all properties where we have management control, whether this is through permanent on-site staff or through regular visits by a surveyor, we ensure that, where applicable, all elements of our RPM programme are adopted in full.

As part of our commitment to continuous improvement we expanded our RPM programme in 2007/8, both in scope - by adding further properties¹ and covering more issues, and in depth - in terms of the quality of measurement by our tools and workbooks. At the end of 2007 we gave clear instructions to our PM’s that all directly managed properties² should be managed under the principles of our RPM programme. Our efforts mean we have energy, water and waste data for 75 properties, or 78% of all our category 1 and 2 properties². We also collect risk data for all of our properties. Over time we are of course committed to measuring and monitoring 100% of our managed portfolio.

1: There were a number of acquisitions and disposals in 2007 which has affected the consistency of our measured portfolio.

2: Cat 1 - Internal Common parts; Cat 2 - External common parts; Cat 3 - No common parts (FRI)

Number of directly managed properties measuring energy data for a full calendar year

While our directly managed portfolio grew, we also expanded the programme through the inclusion of BTPS family property companies, Argent and MEPC. Brindleyplace in Birmingham owned by Argent and managed by GVA Grimley has been included in the programme in 2007. MEPC, who were newcomers to the programme last year, have greatly improved their measurement techniques during 2007, which has led to a significant increase in the number of their properties included in the programme. See Section 2 for more information on Argent and MEPC and our Joint Venture partnerships.

For the purposes of reporting and in the interests of best practice, we have separated the Argent and MEPC portfolios from our performance review and target achievements and provided a separate analysis for these portfolios. However, as these properties are included in our RPM programme and are subjected to the same management regime, all the processes, procedures, initiatives and data collection techniques outlined in this report apply.