Shravan Joshi is Chair of the City of London Planning and Transportation Committee. Having started his career in investment banking, Shravan then moved into the energy sector in 1999. He specialised in trade structuring and supply chain contracts into Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Far East and North America. Between 2008 and 2011, Shravan and his family were based in the United Arab Emirates. Since his return to London, Shravan has worked with several new energy technology companies, advising and consulting on commercialisation of new innovations and solutions. The City’s pre-eminence as a world financial centre has a strong influence on the work of this Committee. It ensures that the City and its residents and workers enjoy well planned buildings, safe, clean streets and a good public transport system.

He was interviewed by the Drees & Sommer neext team.

neext: Thank you so much for taking the time for this interview today. In your role as a Chair of the Planning and Transportation Committee from the City of London, what do you see as the most significant challenges that London is facing in the process of development?

Shravan Joshi (SJ): Essentially, we face two major challenges: The need for high-quality office space for which there is huge demand in the market. And against that we have the urgent need for a sustainable planning future, the ability to meet retrofit stipulations in our policies and to ensure that we can continue the economic growth critical to the City without having such a large impact on the environment.

neext: The main topic of the European talk this year is ‘Urban Retrofit and the Healthy City’, so what is your perspective on why retrofitting has become such a relevant topic subject in European cities in general today?

SJ: I think it’s vital that you know developers and policymakers actually embrace the issues around sustainability and reducing our impact on the environment. That means we have to look at how we reuse, repurpose and reinvent some of these buildings to make them fit for purpose for the next generation. We have over 600 heritage buildings in the City of London itself – and we need to make them work alongside the rest of the ecosystem to ensure that we have a good balance of new developments, heritage assets, and retrofit assets all working in harmony. And we need to meet different industry needs. We’re quite sector-agnostic in the City – while we have a foundation of financial professional services, our highest employment growth sector is technology. We really want to promote innovation and startups. Most businesses in the Square Mile are actually SMEs and we want to encourage that SME growth, so you need to have office environments that encourage that innovation and growth without the rents that some of the new developments command. So retrofit acts as a very good segue into the business world for a lot of new companies. 

neext: Looking back at the final forum you mentioned the need for economic growth and office space, so you have to invest in infrastructure and also the increase of the number of workers in London. Are these the main challenges facing modern cities in Europe in general like bringing all these challenges together?

SJ: The Mayor of London has designated a central activity zone – basically the City of London and bits of Westminster – which make up the central business district of the London area. I think the key factor is the brilliant mass transit systems that we have in the City. In the Square Mile alone we have 16 stations, over 50 bus routes and over 60 cycle routes. That sort of connectivity is unmatched anywhere else in London. So the drive for people to commute in a sustainable, responsible and affordable way is absolutely baked into the infrastructure of London. A lot of our people often forget that the dustries that makes the City run – the cleaners, hospitality, food and beverage staff – work antisocial hours. For them to have access to good, very affordable bus routes and public transport is critical for the running of the City of London. It’s not just about people in suits and tech innovators in their trainers – it is very much about making sure that every social aspect of our City is accessible. And that really requires huge infrastructure investment. We celebrate the Elizabeth line as a demonstration of that. It has brought 1.4 million people to within an hour’s commute of central London. That’s an extra 1.4 million people who could benefit from working in the center of a world-class city. So the economic impact of the train line like that can have a huge economic impact on an entire region of the UK. 

neext: Can you provide examples of successful urban retrofit projects have already been implemented in London.

SJ: In the last 12 months over half of the major retrofit projects in London have been in the City of London, so we’ve really driven not just the policy but also the execution of these retrofit projects. 17 of them were within the City. There’s a really interesting one on the residential fringe – we have a couple of pockets of residences in the City. Number One Golden Lane is in one of the big residential areas. It’s a Grade II listed building that has been converted into a modern office. A little bit of bulk was added on top of the building but the Victoria facade has been kept. It has been retrofitted into a Grade A office. A cultural element has also been added in the form of a Community Center on the ground floor. It’s a great example of a project where we’re lowering the net operational carbon footprint through retrofit. A good example of another kind of project is the headquarters of the Midland bank. It is right on Bank Junction, just across the road from the Bank of England and one of the really beautiful historic buildings in that area. It was very difficult to find a new use for the building and it stood empty for over a decade. An American group came in and converted it into a very successful hotel called The Ned. Thanks to the ability to think outside the box and imagine how to convert an old bank to a new use in the central banking district – and actually have the foresight to turn it into hotel and hospitality center – it is now one of the most successful hospitality ventures in the Square Mile. It has over five restaurants and its own club, and has become a real landmark in itself. 

neext: You mentioned the heritage buildings which represent a huge challenge in terms of retrofitting. Do you have a particular retrofit strategy for these kinds of buildings – like the conversion of a historic building into a hotel you mentioned before?

SJ: I always think that one of the things that makes London such a special city is juxtaposition of these ancient buildings – these stone monuments – and the modern glass and steel towers we have. Tourists love that contrast and it always helps us when we’re talking to people like yourselves about the role that those buildings have. They are very important to us in the fabric of the City, not just for the esthetics but because of their functionality. We still have a lot of ancient guilds in the City of London, as I’m sure you have in Germany as well. And all these guilds are still very wealthy and have their own halls, which are heritage-listed. They have formed a climate action group of their own to look at how to transition from quite heavy operational carbon footprints to net zero or net zero ambition. Just last week we launched a nine-step heritage toolkit specifically for these heritage owners and asset managers on how they can reduce their operational footprint. We can send you the details of that toolkit. We are making it publicly available because we think it’s a great policy directive. It shows very clear pathway to achieving lower carbon footprints for those heritage assets, a difficult task because you have to preserve the fabric and esthetics of the building while installing state-of-the-art building services. 

neext: Yes, especially because requirements are always changing and we have to think further into the future when we talk about retrofitting heritage buildings.

SJ: Our planning policy encourages retrofitting those ‘less than brilliant buildings’ – Class B stock – and we’ve come up a planning fast track: We have lowered the bar on the change of use arguments from office space into one of three categories hotel, cultural and educational use. If a developer invests in one of those Class B assets, they can make an easier case for change of use. That saves a lot of time and money during the planning stage. We chose these three categories after doing some market research as they are probably the ones that will add to the ecosystem and to the value of the business environment.

neext: Given that the strategy you have outlined is clearly successful, what would you say are the challenges that London is still facing in the pursuit of retrofitting on a larger scale?

SJ: I think that takes us back the first question that you asked about what challenges are: It is balancing economic growth against what we can do with space available. We now have a sustainability planning team embedded in our built environment team and at a very early stage of any application they will go through the carbon auctioneering arguments with the developer. So the starting point for discussion is retrofit, but the discussion may very well end up in redevelopment. However, it’s up to the developer to present the reason why retrofit may not be the right solution. And that has to be a quantifiable, justifiable argument of why retrofit is not suitable. It cannot just be ‘because we need tall towers’. Yes, we need tall towers, but in the right places, so we’re trying to help by creating very clear clusters in the Square Mile where new developments and tall towers are suitable. So we’ve said to the market you still have to provide that retrofit argument first, but it’s not a retrofit-only policy. And I think providing as much planning policy clarity as we can is going to help. We now have a Sustainability Planning Document (SPD), an advisory planning document, which is currently out for consultation. It will be coming through to committee later this year, and again that document will provide more clarity to the market on our policies.

neext: London is also working on new initiatives to pursue a greener infrastructure. I read that the mayor wants 50% of London to be green space by 2050. So what is the role of retrofitting in this initiative and how does it contribute to the health and wellbeing of the City?

SJ: We have two aspects around placemaking. We have a healthy streets plan aimed at identifying areas where there are high pedestrian flows and where reducing motor vehicle traffic can assist with urban cooling and creating better air quality for pedestrians. We’ve identified some areas, quite a lot of them around the big station hubs in the City. And then we have an urban greening plan, which is around urban greening and urban cooling – so not just creating more pocket parks, squares and open spaces within the limited space that we have, but actually creating areas where people can recuperate from the energy and the vibrancy of the City. Not just fresh air, but escaping the hustle and bustle to the benefit of their well-being and mental health. We’re working with a lot of agencies to create these types of spaces around the City. Together, they create quite a nice ecosystem for the Square Mile. We have about 600,000 workers who commute in every day, but also, as mentioned, we have pockets of residential communities, and it’s about creating environments and amenities for everyone. 

neext: We live in a time of constant technological disruption, so how are technology and technological tools and methods part of your strategy? Or are there any cool new technological advancements that you can tell us about that you’re already implementing or planning to implement in the near future?

SJ: The market is really moving on that sort of innovation front and a really good example of something that we encouraged recently is the reuse of materials and material passporting. We have a couple of projects now where the developer and the builders are passporting all of their steel, glass and concrete so that you’re not just measuring the carbon footprint in one location but you are able to track a piece of steel across several sites and across several reuses. That obviously lowers the carbon impact of that particular steel beam. We’ve had a couple of success stories now where developers have reused material from one site in another building. It is still early days, and it’s very much being done unilaterally by each developer. We hope that in time we can arrive at a situation where we have cross-industry coordination, allowing the use of a piece of steel from another developer’s site in your site. We are strongly encouraging passporting and the reuse of materials.

neext: I would like to turn to a question on transportation. Maybe, as Chair of the Planning and Transportation Committee, you could you give us some insights into how the City of London plans to balance the increasing demand for efficient transportation with the environmental need to reduce carbon emissions.

SJ: As you know, we have a very dense public transport network in the City of London. Liverpool Street station used to be the third busiest train station in the UK. This year it has become the busiest train station in the UK with over 80 million people transiting through it every year – and that’s largely because of the new Elizabeth line. So if we build the infrastructure, people use it. This is not just people shifting from other lines to use the new line, it’s actually new commuters coming in to use that public transport. The number I gave, 16 stations in the City, gives the absolute density. We have a 25-year transport strategy and the highest priority is pedestrianization and reducing motor vehicle traffic. We have used a lot of technology to lower the number of transiting motor vehicles. We’re using number plate recognition when vehicles enter and leave the City, so we can gauge whether they are transiting or going to a destination in the City. We can then talk to fleet owners about changing their routes to avoid the Square Mile. That has worked quite well – we’ve lowered transiting traffic quite dramatically – by much smarter use of logistics and by understanding the associated carbon footprint. We have established that the last mile is the most carbon intense. So we are repurposing a lot of the empty car parking spaces into last-mile logistics hubs and then using either pure electric vehicles, cycle rickshaws or even manual porters for the last mile. We believe that innovations can help reduce the carbon footprint. 

neext: How can the existing transportation system be ideally integrated into your strategy?

SJ: If you look at the infrastructure map of London and then look at where the highest rents are, they are clearly around those transport hubs. The other day a developer working on a development across one of the big Elizabeth lines told me that the speculative rents on the Elizabeth line junctions are far higher than anywhere else for similar facilities. We’re also seeing peak rents at the Elizabeth line stations – and they are attracting new types of tenants. TikTok, for example, is taking the building above the station. So I would say the reverse is true: You build the infrastructure and that drives the value point for people. [HC1] 

neext: One more question about transport: One of the greatest challenges in urban planning is transportation and mobility, so how does the existing transport network act as a barrier to the effective retrofitting of a city and what can you do to overcome these challenges?

SJ: I think the biggest challenge is that we are dealing with a medieval city – in fact a Roman city – that has grown organically over the centuries. So creating environments that are accessible, inclusive and welcoming is a huge challenge. We formed a policy called Destination City after the lockdown and a couple of the aims of that are to make the Square Mile easier navigate. The weave of streets is quite nice to get lost in, but not so great if you need to go somewhere. We are using technology, mapping systems and even simple wayfinding totems. And we’ve also brought in people on the ground at the major hubs to assist people who are lost, helping them navigate, but also making them feel welcome. A lot of the office buildings built in the past are like fortresses – they’re built to keep people out. So one of the things we’ve encouraged through planning policy is the activation of ground floors and public access to rooftops. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I had a Far Eastern investor and he pointed to a photograph of the City of London with all the tall towers and asked what the rent was at the top of the tallest one. I said it is zero, because the top of that tall tower is a public museum and an education centre. He asked why a developer would do that. I replied because our planning process insists these towers should not be exclusive environments and so the policy actually promotes that sort of welcoming environment. I think if you can get that social aspect right in the equation, you’re still allowing the developer to maximize their profitability, but they also start to value having those spaces within their building as well. 

neext: You’ve shown that you put a lot of emphasis on the economic aspect of what’s happening in city planning while maintaining a strong focus on sustainability. So now the concept of a circular city comes into play and the question is how can a city – even, in your case London –  become a circular city.

SJ: With the built environment accounting for 40% of emissions, embedding the circular economy into the city is one of the biggest challenges we face. Earlier, I gave the example of the reuse of materials. That’s one innovation we are actively promoting. Our retrofit policy promotes the reuse of heritage assets on a large scale, but it is certainly not a perfect mechanism by any means. The circular economy is one of the biggest challenges. I don’t think we’ve got the answer. We haven’t embedded it into policy, but in our plan to 2040 we talk about the desire to start getting circular economy policies in place and so we now expect the industry to respond to that and come up with their own innovations.

neext: A circular economy is not just the responsibility of large companies or the city, but also a matter of joining forces and working together. How can local businesses and residents contribute to the development of a more circular city?

SJ: If I look at some of the big anchor tenants we have in the City, they absolutely insist upon having at least net-zero operations buildings, if not buildings with a low embodied carbon footprint. And there are three reasons for that. The first one is obviously they have their own ESG policies to fulfill. The second is when their clients and visitors come to their offices, they need those offices to personify those values. And the third is they want to get the best talent and they have to have those buildings and those policies in place if they want to recruit the best talent.

On the resident side, I think you know we I said we have about 9,000 residents we have worked very hard with them on upgrading a lot of the residential buildings – replacing windows and heating systems. And for many years, the Square Mile has had a district heating system powered by ground-sourced heat pumps and all those sites are all linked up to it. So by choosing renewable energy sources we’re able to overcome a lot of those carbon challenges for our residents.

neext: At the final forum you said new developments must be sustainable, carbon-optimized and flexible for reuse, so what is your recipe in terms of this of this year’stheme – Urban Retrofit and the Healthy City?

SJ: I think we’ve all got to learn from each other. A couple of weeks ago I visited the Paris booth at MIPIM. Paris is doing some phenomenal urban greening projects around the Olympics, which I think are going to be sustainable and leave a legacy, and we can learn from that. They also talked to us about some of our retrofit policies. I think have to come together. We have to get away from the idea that there is a league table of European cities. We are all dealing with cities that are very different, we have very different mindsets and cultures, and we must learn from each other. Recently, I was talking to a couple of Scandinavian colleagues about the use of timber in buildings and how they are advancing on that front and we are trying to learn how we might use that in London, so I think that there are cross-learnings here and we’ve got to get away from that sort of competitive mindset to a more collaborative one. 

neext: We are just kicking off our initiative in Paris right now and talking with BNP Paribas, Unibail-Rodamco and BauMont, and as you already mentioned we have to learn from each other and see that there are different perspectives. And that’s exactly the approach we are taking. Thank you so much for making this happen.