How flexible offices are supporting ESG: Q&A with Plus X Innovation

As part of our series to find out how flexible office providers are addressing ESG (Environmental Social Governance) within their spaces we caught up with Paul Rostas, Co-CEO & Co-Founder at Plus X Innovation to find out more.

Tell us a bit about your business / offer

Plus X Innovation is a unique and inspiring workplace concept, bringing together state-of-the-art workspace, specialist equipment and facilities, game-changing innovation and business support programmes, and vibrant member communities helping to drive business growth.   

Plus X Innovation curates a variety of buildings including refurbishment of existing buildings, unused spaces, and design and development of new buildings. We work across entire properties or individual floors. Plus X Innovation activates excess space and delivers sustainably designed workspaces, delivering social impact with local partnerships and re-engaging teams to connect and innovate together. Everything we do is connected, creating our innovation ecosystem. Our work with businesses, the community, local and national government, and educational institutions is intertwined so we can create spaces for innovation, collaboration, and positive change to thrive. By working across the entire ecosystem in all areas of the UK, we can drive innovation that solves the challenges of our time. 

Plus X Innovation’s Proven Track Record:

• Plan to launch 25 hubs across the UK  
• Successful UK innovation track record for 8 years, supporting startups who have gone on to create over 1,000+ high value jobs  
• £165m raised by SMEs who have been on our in-house programmes 
• Won £25m grant funding to support entrepreneurs and landlords 
• Partnered with University of Brighton and Brunel University London, as well as local councils and authorities 
• 160x more impactful than a conventional office space 

Are you addressing environmental, social and governance issues equally or focussing more on one of these areas?

Plus X Innovation hubs help regional towns and cities to flourish, enabling local economies to thrive  and cope with local business challenges. Sustainability and positive impact are at the foundation of every new Plus X Innovation hub. From our buildings, business support programmes, and initiatives, to taking care of our members, every decision and choice we make is informed by our vision for positive social change and a sustainable future. There is more urgency than ever before on making conscious choices regarding people, planet, and how we do business.

It has become apparent that when looking at ESG, a lot of workspace providers focus primarily on environmental impact and metrics. At Plus X Innovation, we strive to build the most sustainable spaces possible, but in addition to this, our business model focusses on delivering positive social impact in our locations and across the UK. 

We believe talent is everywhere, but there isn’t always the opportunity and the right spaces for people to grow their businesses locally. We have found that regional businesses historically have not grown as much as competitors in central cities such as London, partly because there is a lack of access to business support and finance, but also some early SME founders are less confident about competing with better supported businesses. 

We partner with local leaders and property partners to create an innovation ecosystem designed to encourage opportunity and collaboration. This approach means we enable local talent, increase skills, and create more job opportunities – attracting new enterprises, making local businesses more successful, and igniting regional growth. 

Plus X Innovation has worked with RealWorth to provide accurate assessments of the socio-economic value created by the innovation hubs. The Plus X Innovation Brighton hub was estimated to have created £32.5m worth of socio-economic value in the first 12 months of operation. Plus X Innovation works closely with our local communities to create transformative and positive social impact through our hubs. We partner with local institutions and charities to help create jobs and internship opportunities for underrepresented groups. For example, we work with Dad La Soul, an organisation combating social isolation of fathers, to open up the event space at our Brighton hub for their monthly playdates for male-identifying carers and their kids. We also collaborate with countless organisations to galvanise and inspire the next generation of innovators, connecting young founders with organisations that have overcome hardship and found success. We have also been working with the Girls Network to develop a series of hands-on interactive workshops at secondary schools to introduce the world of entrepreneurship to 14–18-year-old girls. 

Are you addressing sustainability in the way you operate your business, and if yes what does this include for you?

We particularly focus on sustainability in two major areas that make Plus X Innovation unique, the way we build and run our spaces, and the sustainable expertise and facilities we provide through our business support programmes. 

Building sustainable spaces 

When we partnered with U+I as part of the Preston Barracks regeneration project in Brighton, we knew that sustainability had to be at the core. Working with architects Studio Egret West, the building has been designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent and an EPC B Rating. The state-of-the-art building has been created with sustainability in mind – from meeting room desks made from recycled plastic, through to lampshades made from recycled wool.  

Plus X Innovation in Brighton has also been designed around the 11 WELL standards created by Wellspace, which focus on the health of the building and the wellbeing of the people who occupy it, including air quality, nourishment, light, materials and innovations. This includes a drive towards zero-to-landfill waste disposal and green energy, solar panels on the roof, locally-sourced-produce, and eco cleaning. 
 

Connecting SMEs with sustainability experts and partners 

Plus X Innovation prioritises sustainability and positive change through innovation programmes. Through these world-standard innovation programmes, Plus X Innovation further connects entrepreneurial startup and scaleup talents with a suite of mentors and experts to resolve business challenges and accelerate solutions. The innovators and entrepreneurs that we support inherently seek to address issues of sustainability – matters of environmental impact, mental and physical health, ethical business, and more are often a key part of each founder’s mission. It’s rewarding to amplify these values of our members. ‘Pioneers’ is an intensive two-day programme supporting local business leaders to create a positive impact with industry partners. Our ‘Better World Collective’ connects corporates with sustainable material innovation challenges with the innovative startups and scaleups that hold the solutions.  

Since 2015, our programmes have supported over 400 businesses to elevate and scale their organisations by providing business and product development support, as well as grants towards product development costs. We are also working hard to make product development a more equal playing field for every innovator. We are proud to have supported more than 100 female founders who are driving change in the often male-dominated world of hardware.  

After graduating from our programmes, our founders have gone on to raise millions of pounds in investment, launch products, grow their teams, speak at events, and expand to further countries. Startups who have participated in our programmes have gone on to raise over £165 million in investment and grants in total whilst creating over 1,000 high-value jobs.   

Is consideration of sustainability affecting your long-term strategic planning g. site selection?

By adopting a sustainable approach in design, construction, and operation, Plus X Innovation aims to meet sustainability aspirations, satisfy current local planning policies, and exceed building standards wherever it is technically, functionally and economically viable.

We are setting internal procedures outlining how we ensure all hubs are set up and managed in a way which reduces consumption, promotes responsible procurement and sustainability in general. We are also running carbon assessment exercises to quantify how our design initiatives have benefited space against a typical “carbon” retrofit. Our innovation hub in Brighton is an excellent example of our standards but we want to build on this. The next step for us is to quantify our long-term targets, building on our ESG Action list.  

We have worked hard to ensure that our model works well for a single building retrofit as well as for new buildings as part of mixed-use development. One of the opportunities with urban centres of innovation is to repurpose retail assets, especially department stores, and underutilised office spaces. We continue to explore how our model can repurpose and reactivate such assets.

Are any of your clients/occupiers asking you about ESG? If yes what are they asking about?

Our hub members are constantly engaged on the topic of ESG goals: from maximising local social impact, perhaps through supporting mentoring or apprentice opportunities, to how we deal with recycling and waste and energy in the building. We say to any business founder or leader that they can relocate their teams to our building confident in the knowledge that we will really help them to attract and retain staff who care about people and planet. We make it easy for companies to address and solve a wide range of social and sustainability issues. 

Do you think ESG has been fully embraced by the flexible office sector? If not, what do you think are the barriers?

From a social impact point of view: no. The simple truth is that most flexible office models are based on managing to a very low-cost base, and most real estate management teams know a lot more about asset management than social impact. We believe the Plus X Innovation team has a far wider focus than most flex office teams and is motivated to go beyond space management. Our staff are as keen to deliver on metrics of inclusion and economic productivity, as they are on financial KPIs. 

What more can be done?

Behavioural economists cite comparison charts as key ways to incentivise behaviour change. From car theft league tables in the nineties leading to better car security, to building energy performance certificates in the noughties driving insulation levels and installation of green energy sources, these mechanisms have supported change through legislation and the power of consumer choice. We know that EPC legislation continues to drive the performance of building assets but it’s less clear if we will see employers publishing league tables of carbon footprint per employee to attract and retain talent. If that were to be the case, then flex-office providers would have something to aim for!  

For social impact, we need better models that can support inclusion, knowledge exchange and productivity growth in towns and cities. Whether by further devolution of government funds, or other means to allow local place leaders to create a more joined-up approach, flex-office providers can better play their part if they are woven into a wider place-based ecosystem.

Explore Plus X Innovation in Brighton.