Westfield in the United Kingdom continued its initiatives to reduce energy consumption during 2012. There was particular focus on purchased electricity, which has always been the Group’s most significant source of energy consumption across not only its UK portfolio, but globally as well.
These initiatives have delivered annual carbon savings of an estimated 4 million kg CO2e since implementation.
As with previous year Westfield UK focused on lighting as a key area of potential reduction. At Merry Hill, lighting was upgraded to LED in the mall and the facilities offices. Similarly at Derby, less efficient lighting across the mall was replaced with LED. To ensure that lighting is used only when absolutely necessary, the Westfield UK team improved lighting controls at a number of centres across the national portfolio. At Derby, fluorescent lighting controls were installed in the mall and dimmable lighting controls in the car park. At Stratford City, office lighting controls were improved by installing better system controls and passive infrared (PIR) sensors in meeting rooms so lights activate only when rooms are in use. At Westfield London, lighting in the mall was upgraded to LED along with significant improvements to car park lighting. The management team installed roof lighting sensors to ensure that the lights covering the 42-acre roof would remain off during the day when they were not needed. In addition, themed lighting installations for special events like Christmas were equipped with timers to ensure that they were not left on all day.
A second focus area was heating and ventilation. At Westfield Stratford City, heating hours were reduced along with circulating pump controls to ensure deactivation outside operating hours. Westfield London improved the temperature controls for its condenser water, reducing the pumping demand and therefore the energy required to run these pumps. Mall environment controls at Westfield London were improved to allow for the incorporation of natural ventilation and to more intelligently direct the plant to maximize efficiency. The centre team also undertook initiatives to reduce fan time schedules across 64 restaurants and toilet extract fans. Other programs to reduce energy demand during the year focused on escalators: at Stratford City for example, a procedure was implemented to turn off escalators outside operating hours to minimise usage.