Tribes On The Rising Energy Costs in the Flex Market
Vastgoed Journal Interview with Eduard Schaepman
How are flexible office landlords dealing with rising energy prices? After all, they work with rental contracts that already include the service costs and cannot pass on the costs directly. Eduard Schaepman of Tribes provides an explanation.
It is expected that more and more employees will find their way back to the office after a long period of time working from home in order to save energy at home. Schaepman says that those savings for a single person household can amount to around €3,000 per year. But office owners are also being impacted by the significant increase in energy prices.
Schaepman: “We rent our office spaces from property owners. They have been impacted by increasing engergy prices since last December. Because energy rates were historically high at that time, the advice from their energy supplier was to move to a variable contract because energy prices were expected to move quickly. At the time, no one knew anything about Russia's plans to invade Ukraine, with all the consequences."
Tribes itself works with fixed energy contracts and knows where they stand in terms of costs and income. “When our current energy contracts are extended, we will meet with the property owner to see if we can spread the price increase over a longer period because we also cannot pass it on directly to our own customers. This is only possible when they enter into a new rental contract with Tribes. It's basically a domino effect."
Schaepman sees everyone at home making massive cutbacks in energy consumption and is convinced that this will also happen at the office. Partly by making the building as energy efficient as possible and also with the user being more awaren of his or her role in the office. “We must continue to encourage users to reduce standby consumption. So in the evening PCs and monitors are no longer on standby but switched off, chargers are unplugged from the sockets and lights are not left on in meeting rooms that are not being used. If we can save energy at home, we can do the same in the office,” says the director resolutely.
To back up his words, Tribes has a location manager in all its buildings who is equipped with a Sustainibilty Guide, a handy tool with energy savings guidelines. “It's just a matter of re-educating the office user a bit. We used to do it that way, so why not anymore?"
