Throughout London’s five heatwaves this summer, many workers have clung to one thought: they could escape the sweltering confines of their homes for the luxury of air-conditioned respite in the office.
Not everyone has found relief: estate agents say the need for cooling has quickly risen up the list of tenant must-haves.
While some older properties do not have air conditioning, others have systems that cannot withstand the high temperatures and have broken down. Those built in the last 20 to 30 years, such as most of the buildings in Mayfair, might offer only cooling units, which operate on evaporative methods, according to one large commercial landlord.
The City of London fares better with buildings designed specifically for office workers. Eight out of 10 offices in the City of London, or 3,302 premises, are fully air-conditioned, according to real estate consultancy Robert Irving Burns. The City, or Square Mile, spans the law courts at its western boundary to the Tower of London in the east.
But only 61 per cent of premises — some 7,134 locations — in Westminster with its older converted buildings, including the West End, have the amenity, while 68 per cent have some form of “mechanical cooling”. Robert Irving Burns used data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for its analysis.
“Air conditioning has gone from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to a deal-breaker for many tenants and that’s proving particularly challenging in . . . parts of the West End,” said Antony Antoniou, chief executive of Robert Irving Burns. “Retrofitting air conditioning into a converted Victorian or Georgian building can be a slow and expensive process, fraught with obstacles,” such as planning restrictions and a lack of ceiling voids or space for external plant.
The UK is heading for its hottest summer on record by mean temperature, according to the Met Office. The independent Climate Change Committee advisory group has called for the government to commit to a national maximum temperature for workplaces for safety.
A recent YouGov poll conducted on behalf of environmental group Friends of the Earth found that 79 per cent of respondents supported the measure.
Harry Mills, managing director at a currency management company, was prohibited for weeks this summer from opening the balcony door of his flat in Battersea while building renovations took place. The temperature inside measured more than 30C at times, he said.
Going to his office in Wandsworth did not help much, as it lacks air conditioning. Luckily, he faces an inner atrium so there was no direct sunlight, he said. Still, when he moves his company to the City after next year, “100 per cent we have to have air conditioning. We didn’t even think about it when we moved in here, but now it’s a non-negotiable.”
Even the City’s established tenants are feeling the heat.
Grant Thornton’s senior executives were attempting a full day of strategy-setting sessions this summer when they were overcome by the broiling temperatures in meeting rooms and had to interrupt the high-level talks to move to a cooler location — not once, but three times.
Some companies have set temperature limits that prevent them from cranking up the air conditioning, in an effort to reduce energy consumption and lower emissions. Big Four accounting and consulting firms Deloitte and KPMG changed their temperature control systems about three years ago, according to their annual reports, and now operate within a fixed setting.
Law firm Hogan Lovells Cadwalader last month called off a summer party at its Atlantic House location owing to overheating concerns. “We weren’t planning to contend with England’s semi-final and a London heatwave in the same week,” the cancellation notice said, citing “air conditioning that simply isn’t keeping up”. Hogan Lovells Cadwalader declined to comment.
Air conditioning units also contribute to the urban heat island effect and use refrigerants, which worsen global warming in a self-reinforcing loop, although these gases are due to be phased out under a legally binding international agreement adopted in 2016.
Consulting firm Capgemini flagged refrigerants as a concern in its 2023 sustainability report, while mid-tier rival BDO replaced air conditioners in one of its UK offices in 2022 with a more energy-efficient system.
Some landlords are considering comfort cooling options or so-called passive measures, such as solar shades and ventilation, Antoniou said. But “in a market where supply of high-quality office space was already constrained, this summer’s heatwaves have accelerated the polarisation between air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned stock.”
Lily Riahi, head of the buildings and cooling unit at the UN Environment Programme, points to Singapore as a model for how to design, retrofit and sustainably cool cities by using building regulations, conservation and energy-saving measures.
The hot, humid city-state integrates urban greenery, shading, ventilation, heat-resistant materials and wind corridors, along with combined systems of fans, evaporative cooling and air conditioning set at an elevated temperature.
In the UK, malfunctioning systems can worsen an already lamentable situation.
The H B Allen Centre at Oxford university’s Keble College that opened about six years ago was constructed without air conditioning. One evening this June, heaters in the building automatically came on, until those inside found a way to manually shut them off, according to a person familiar with the glitch.
A spokesperson for Keble College said it had no record of the incident, and if it had been reported its maintenance and housekeeping teams “would have investigated promptly”.
Additional reporting by Suzi Ring and Emiliya Mychasuk
