• Consider all aspects of obsolescence. When planning capital outlays, investors and authorities alike should consider the multiple dimensions of obsolescence – age and design, regulatory and location – in order to maximize return on investment.
• Anticipate changes in real estate demand. Within cities, the fluidity of office demand is contrasting with acute shortfalls in residential, experience-based retail and urban logistics supply to reshape spatial development and regeneration patterns.
• Identify locations to prioritize. Upwards of US$1.2 trillion in capital expenditure globally could be needed to bring office assets at the end of their life cycle up to current standards. Additionally, 78% of office product and 83% of necessary capex is found in the U.S. and Europe. 
• Plan for the long term. On the other hand, data centers, student accommodation and other emerging and alternative classes are only beginning their life-cycle journeys, with implications for strategic asset management into the 2030s.

Although there is no one measurement to calculate near-term obsolescence or stranding risk, building age tends to correlate best with respect to the ability to meet tenant, investor and sustainability requirements along with the rate of occupancy and rent growth. Age aligns strongly with existing engineering, technological and climate adaptation capabilities as well as the ability to retrofit them at pace. In parallel, the presence of social value- and wellbeing-oriented design through the presence of private outdoor spaces, biophilic architecture, retention of some or all of the substructure to better manage embodied carbon, and floorplates that maximize light penetration all have a greater presence in new construction, meeting newer standards for users of all forms of commercial real estate.

The scale of these impending capital needs should not be underestimated, particularly for highly differentiated sectors. Of the 776 million square meters of existing office space in 66 key markets globally, anywhere from 322 to 425 million square meters is likely to require substantial capital expenditure to remain viable in the near term. In practice, this equates to roughly US$933 billion to US$1.2 trillion in spending, roughly 2.2 to 3.1 years’ worth of dry powder in the entire United States.

At the same time, this is unevenly distributed: 44% of projected obsolescence is likely to arise in the U.S. given higher levels of structural vacancy, with a further 34% in Europe as flight to quality in select segments leads to a smaller but still significant amount of vacant product with little demand chasing it. Such divergence also exists at the market level, where New York, Washington DC, Paris, Chicago and London alone will account for US$242 to US$320 billion of necessary global capital expenditures. These discrepancies underscore the distinctions that owners will need to make when assessing the gradient and distribution of super-prime, core, value-add and distressed investment opportunities and strategies.

Pressure on owners to extensively retrofit their buildings is also coming from both private and public forces with respect to sustainability and decarbonization. Although the share of emissions sourced directly from buildings is beginning to flatline, they still comprise upwards of 39% to 42% of global emissions on an annual basis. In order to reach impending net-zero targets, the scale of retrofitting will need to accelerate markedly. The top eight markets for regulatory stranding risk have more than 86 million square meters of office product in need of near-term capex due to tightening compliance standards alone.

The upfront expense of necessary capital expenditures, however, comes with longer-term benefits to operating costs over the life cycle of a given asset. Whole-building retrofits involving a reduction in energy usage of between 40% and 65% have an average saving of US$31 per square meter. If applied under a medium scenario for global at-risk office product in the eight highest-risk markets for stranding, this would yield US$2.7 billion in annual energy savings alone for institutional office owners. These opex benefits are coinciding with sustained growth in tenant and investor demand alike for low-carbon buildings across asset classes and intensifying emissions reporting and benchmarking mandates from national and local governments. As a result, owners who are proactive about bringing product up to and above sustainability expectations will find greater return on investment and minimize the incidence of stranding.

The geographic concentration of aging product and places in cities with higher shares of emissions coming from buildings means that the rewards from decarbonization scale rapidly. Under even a moderate scenario, more than 52 million square meters of current office product in Boston, Washington DC, Paris, London, Seoul and Tokyo is likely functionally obsolete, but more than 60% of emissions in these metro areas originates from the built environment. Similarly, European and Asian cities with strengthening regulatory regimes also have more than half of their emissions emanating from buildings, meaning that the risk of stranding is now an impetus to accelerate wholesale retrofitting and meeting net-zero targets.

Sustainability and regulatory changes will also affect the spectrum of asset classes at highly variable rates, with significant implications for capital costs, portfolio optimization and stranding risk. Most sectors have a typical site energy use intensity of 800 to 1,550kBtu per square meter, although this rises above 2,400 for data centers and approaches 3,500 for lab space. On the other hand, warehouses fall below the 500kBtu per square meter threshold and the broader industrial and logistics segment skews near the bottom, creating significant opportunity for a 100-200bps rise in returns in stringent compliance regions such as Europe. 

While owners and municipalities will have to take the initiative to tackle many of their challenges quickly and independently, the full potential to create value through higher-quality, sustainable and resilient buildings and precincts can only be achieved through collaborative engagement between stakeholders and planning that takes into account how multiple forms and levels of obsolescence interact.

Owners will need to assess their portfolios from the perspective of how they fit into their respective built environments and how age, layout and other physical factors affect the ability to better respond to changing locational preferences and exposure to national and local changes to sustainability and development regulations. Public authorities should consider where clusters of similar buildings or uses exist to focus regeneration efforts to catalyze new non-commercial development and inject residential and footfall to boost business activity, while also retrofitting to decarbonize at scale. 

Importantly, this framework for obsolescence emphasizes that strategies do not exist in isolation. Asset repurposing in the form of adaptive reuse, for instance, routinely forms part of post-industrial precinct regeneration, while repositioning product to improve retail provision can be part of incremental improvements to enhance the user experience. In all cases, however, market forces and external considerations will shape time frames, financial viability and quantum of achievable change. 

There are four core pathways to avoid stranding risk, each with requisite market, financial and political considerations