Shakespeare's Globe
About Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare’s Globe West Block office building is located at 21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, London. The building was constructed in 1997 and covers 7,350 m2. Shakespeare’s Globe has a freehold tenure.
Shakespeare’s Globe is one of London’s most recognised cultural landmarks. The performing arts venue hosts more than 1.25 million visitors annually across two theatres: the “Globe Theatre,” a reconstruction of the storied “Globe” playhouse that first opened in 1599 and was used by William Shakespeare; and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – an indoor theatre lit by more than one hundred beeswax candles.
In 2020, the organisation faced a challenging decision. Shakespeare’s Globe had planned to demolish and redevelop its West Block office building, which is adjacent to its theatres and houses its administrative offices. However, as the pandemic hit, Shakespeare’s Globe reconsidered the investment and decided to refurbish the building instead. An opportunity to pair sustainability with their capital improvements arose, as they could incorporate efficient retrofits that would reduce their building’s energy use and carbon emissions. Refurbishing rather than demolishing and constructing new buildings also avoids embodied carbon emissions from material manufacturing and construction processes. And avoiding these emissions makes a difference: 35 per cent of an office building’s carbon emissions are emitted before the building is operational1.
1 The choice between demolition or reuse: developer insights, UK Green Building Council
Background
The opportunity to join the BCC came at the right time for Deborah McGhee, Estate and Capital Works Project Manager at Shakespeare’s Globe, as she wanted to learn how their building could be more energy efficient. As a building surveyor, sustainability has always been a key pillar in her day-to-day job. Shakespeare’s Globe was inspired to apply to the programme for the opportunity to be part of a Mayoral initiative and support the GLA’s net zero target.
Shakespeare’s Globe was excited to work with the BCC’s energy efficiency experts, Turner & Townsend, to assess and understand their building features, equipment, and energy consumption. The BCC worked with the Globe’s team to show how much they could save through energy efficiency actions and retrofitting their office space. The BCC also helped the Globe to take an integrated approach to energy efficiency across the business, for example by incorporating implementation of retrofit measures in their estate strategy. Today, sustainability is a core part of the business and they have developed a “green group” within their organisation.
The BCC’s technical support also improved staff’s energy knowledge.
Meeting other local businesses from the Better Bankside cohort that were participating in the Challenge helped Shakespeare’s Globe go further. Sharing with and learning from other businesses looking to save energy helped them to navigate challenges and infuse best practices into their operations.
Energy and building improvements
The BCC building audit conducted by Turner & Townsend highlighted that optimising Shakespeare’s Globe’s Building Management System (BMS) could improve equipment operations monitoring and help reduce energy use.
As Shakespeare’s Globe learned more about energy measurement tools, they began to put their knowledge into practice. The facilities and estates team adopted an online portal to track the performance of their boilers, kitchen appliances and equipment.
They can remotely turn their equipment on and off to avoid using excess energy, and review temperature set points to ensure they are calibrated to the season. The next step will be to link smart meters, now being installed, to the BMS, enabling better tracking of energy in high usage areas.
Deborah’s recommendation for other businesses:
“As a first step, understand and measure your energy baseline. Include energy monitoring as part of your plan and assess how it influences your assets.”
Shakespeare’s Globe also has two retrofit projects as part of their building renovation works. They are replacing their lighting system with LEDs (a replacement process that is 60 per cent done and has been incorporated into yearly budgeting to replace lighting as it nears its end of life). Furthermore, the organisation is assessing their building envelope to identify and address areas where heat is lost. As they undergo compartmentation works for fire safety and roof repairs, they are incorporating thermal wall insulation to preserve heat and save energy.
So far, Shakespeare’s Globe has reduced their energy use by 23 per cent relative to their 2019 baseline, resulting in a 19 per cent reduction in energy costs.
Next steps
Shakespeare’s Globe is committed to improving their energy efficiency – but as in other organisations, their sustainability journey is not free of challenges. Instituting long-term behaviour change to reduce energy use in the office can be difficult, and broader usage patterns and waste in the arts industry need to be tackled. For example, balancing the need for new theatrical productions with re-using materials is crucial.
Deborah is currently drafting new sustainability policies for Shakespeare’s Globe to improve staff awareness, informed and guided by BCC supports:
“After attending the BCC’s behaviour change training, we took away a lot of lessons and have started the process of engaging staff and employees.”
As Shakespeare’s Globe pursues further opportunities to reduce energy use, learnings from the BCC will continue to guide them in tackling challenges and enhancing whole-organisation awareness.
The Business Climate Challenge provided me with an understanding of the tools for measuring my building’s energy consumption and carbon footprint – I am much more carbon literate now.