The UK Green Building Council launches a pilot retrofit at One Poultry in London to break systemic barriers in building renovation and boost innovation uptake.
Tackling retrofit challenges through innovation and leadership
Aiming high, the UK Green Building Council (UK GBC) has launched a new pilot project to demonstrate the environmental and economic viability of energy retrofits in commercial buildings.
The urgent need to upgrade aging buildings, now major energy sieves, is a shared challenge across Europe. Yet retrofit is still not the top choice for many real estate investors, who often prefer new construction over renovating existing assets.
To challenge this mindset, UKGBC is transforming One Poultry, a landmark London building designed by James Stirling, into a real-world demonstration of sustainable and scalable retrofit solutions.
Breaking systemic barriers to energy retrofit
Designed between 1985 and 1988 and completed in 1997, One Poultry is a recognized icon of London’s postmodern architecture. It holds Grade II listing status under the UK’s heritage protection system. Despite its historical value, the 14,400-square-meter building has seen no major upgrades since the 1990s, and now suffers from spatial inefficiencies and high operating costs.
To address these issues, the current asset manager has appointed FORCE Partnership to oversee the energy renovation process.
Here, UK GBC steps in with a mission to show what today’s energy retrofit solutions can achieve, through a symbolic and ambitious pilot project.
Strategic thinking starts with phase zero
The One Poultry project will not only tackle the technical and structural issues typical of retrofits, but also embed sustainability, innovation and long-term strategic planning from day one.
A key focus is placed on the “Stage 0” of the RIBA Plan of Work, the strategic definition phase where the project’s core purpose, long-term objectives and positive impact are outlined. UK GBC aims to use this phase to engage innovators, test experimental approaches, and rethink how energy retrofit is conceptualized and delivered.
The initiative is backed by a robust alliance of strategic partners:
- FORCE Partnership, providing on-the-ground expertise for a low-carbon intervention
- UK Green Building Council, offering systemic insight, stakeholder engagement, and strategic leadership
- Breakthrough Energy’s venture fund, contributing technological know-how and a global innovation network
A blueprint for commercial building retrofit
“Our built environment faces deep-rooted obstacles to innovation—fragmentation, lack of early involvement, complex procurement systems, high uncertainty, and a low appetite for risk,” said Emily-Rose Garnett, senior advisor for solutions and innovation at UK GBC. “We can only drive real change through large-scale implementation.”
The first step in the project is the creation of an Innovation Map for commercial building retrofit. This resource will lay out the full anatomy of a retrofit intervention, from envelope upgrades and building materials to solar technologies and water efficiency systems, highlighting hundreds of advanced solutions already available on the market.
This dual approach will:
- help project teams make better, more integrated design decisions
- increase the market adoption of cutting-edge technologies by raising their visibility
The One Poultry retrofit targets EPC A certification and operational carbon neutrality, with strong emphasis on circularity of materials and full lifecycle environmental impact reduction.
Completion is expected by 2027.
