IN Brief:
- Larger privately rented commercial buildings in England and Wales are expected to meet EPC B by 2031 where cost-effective.
- The BCIA says building controls and BEMS will be central to improving operational energy performance.
- The association has called for greater ambition across smaller commercial buildings, which remain under weaker requirements.
The Building Controls Industry Association has welcomed government confirmation that larger privately rented non-domestic buildings in England and Wales will be expected to reach EPC B by 2031 where improvements are cost-effective.
The planned requirement applies to buildings over 1,000 sq m and retains existing flexibility measures, including the seven-year payback test and current exemptions. The association said the move will support energy-performance improvements across some of the UK’s most significant commercial assets, while calling for stronger action across the wider building stock.
Buildings larger than 1,000 sq m represent a relatively small share of non-domestic buildings by number, but account for more than half of total floor space and energy consumption in the sector. Improving their performance could therefore cut energy waste, emissions, and operating costs across a large proportion of commercial property.
The BCIA warned, however, that smaller commercial buildings remain subject to the existing EPC E requirement, with no confirmed timetable for a higher standard. That leaves a large part of the market on a weaker compliance path, despite the scale of energy savings available through better controls, monitoring, and building services performance.
Building controls and Building Energy Management Systems are expected to carry much of the retrofit workload. Heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting systems in commercial buildings often operate inefficiently because controls are poorly commissioned, schedules are overridden, sensors are misaligned, or building use has changed since installation. Modern BEMS can monitor performance, identify waste, optimise operation, and give facilities teams clearer data on energy use.
The association has argued that advanced Class A BEMS can deliver average energy and carbon savings of around 30% across a typical building lifecycle. Those savings can be achieved without treating retrofit solely as a fabric or plant replacement exercise. In many buildings, commissioning, controls upgrades, metering, zoning, and better operational management can unlock performance before more disruptive capital works are undertaken.
Commercial landlords now have a clearer direction of travel, although 2031 is not a distant deadline in building terms. Larger assets can take years to audit, model, design, fund, procure, install, commission, and verify, particularly where tenants remain in occupation. Owners that delay improvement planning may face compressed supply chains and higher costs as the deadline approaches.
The policy also strengthens the role of data in retrofit. EPC ratings have long been criticised for their limited reflection of real-world operation, but compliance work increasingly requires asset owners to understand how buildings perform in use. Controls contractors, M&E specialists, energy consultants, commissioning engineers, and facilities teams will all be drawn into the process because measured performance depends on how systems are operated after upgrades are installed.
Smaller buildings present a tougher challenge. They are often owned by more fragmented landlords, managed with fewer technical resources, and operated with less monitoring. Many will have old plant, basic controls, and limited capital budgets. Leaving them on an EPC E trajectory reduces short-term regulatory pressure, but it risks widening the performance gap between larger institutional assets and smaller commercial properties.
Retrofit work is already becoming more operational and controls-led across the built environment. The focus is moving from installing individual upgrades to managing whole-building performance, with controls, metering, analytics, and commissioning sitting alongside fabric and plant improvements. That shift places building controls specialists closer to the centre of commercial property compliance.
The planned EPC B requirement gives owners of larger rented commercial buildings a clearer compliance target. The construction and building services market now has to turn that target into phased, technically sound retrofit work that improves performance without disrupting occupied buildings more than necessary.
