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By Workways Commercial Strategy – Reading Time: 5 mins
If you’re a CFO or Operations Director planning your real estate footprint over the next five years, you’re facing a perfect storm:
- Pressure to reduce CapEx in an unpredictable economy
- Rising scrutiny on ESG performance and proof
- And a costly reality: under a traditional lease, you often fund upgrades (HVAC, air quality monitoring, metering, controls) in an asset you don’t own—then potentially pay again to remove it at exit.
Sustainability is no longer just a corporate value. For many companies, it is becoming a capital allocation problem.
At Workways, we don’t believe you should have to choose between capital efficiency and environmental responsibility. With our newest flagship building in Brussels—Excelsiorlaan 44 in Zaventem, directly across the road from our Brussels Headquarters—we’re proving that the smartest financial move can also be the most sustainable one.
The 2026 Compliance Reality: Proof, Not Promises
2026 is not just “another ESG year.” For many organisations, it’s the year sustainability moves from narratives to evidence—in board decks, investor conversations, and increasingly in formal reporting processes.
That’s why modern workspace requirements now converge around three practical needs:
- Energy performance (so the asset is not a liability)
- Operational controls (so performance is repeatable, not accidental)
- Energy reporting-ready data (so you can evidence what happened, not guess)
This is where traditional leased offices quietly become a trap: you inherit old infrastructure, then write large cheques to retrofit—often with limited ability to instrument the space properly, and no guarantee the improvements survive lease exit.
When Fit-Out Costs Become “Dead Money”
In our earlier analysis, we used real market benchmarks to show how fast costs escalate when you lease a bare shell.
JLL’s EMEA fit-out guidance puts average office fit-out at ~€1,823 per m². At 500 m², that’s €900,000 to well over €1 million before you factor in furniture, IT/AV, and project overheads (Workways: “The CapEx Trap”).
Then comes the cost nobody likes to model: exit exposure. Your own post flags typical dilapidation liabilities in the range of €50–€150 per m², which can materially add to total lifecycle cost (Workways: “The CapEx Trap”).
This is why “traditional lease + fit-out” is increasingly incompatible with capital discipline.
Repurpose and Reuse: The Lowest-Carbon Real Estate Strategy
The traditional corporate model—build new or gut and rebuild for each occupier—is financially and environmentally inefficient.
At Excelsiorlaan 44, Workways’ approach is repurpose and reuse: acquire and refurbish existing assets to avoid unnecessary demolition and reduce embodied emissions versus a new build.
Just as importantly for occupiers, we apply the same logic to your office strategy:
Why spend six figures building a bespoke fit-out that depreciates on your books and may be stripped out at exit—when you can move into a high-performance, finished suite with the controls and instrumentation already in place?
From Energy “Efficiency” to Energy “Governance”
An office shouldn’t consume energy when no one is in it—yet most traditional offices still heat, cool, and ventilate empty rooms.
At Excelsiorlaan 44, we engineer out waste via intelligent infrastructure designed around measurable outcomes:
- Occupancy-driven climate control: heating/cooling tied to use, not assumptions
- Granular sensors: CO₂, temperature, humidity in offices and shared zones to tune air renewal to real demand
- Workways Live App: real-time operational visibility (by zone), helping teams manage comfort and consumption with actual data—useful for internal energy reporting and stakeholder communications
This is the difference between “we think it’s efficient” and “we can show you.”
The Result: Performance That Starts Compliant
Across our optimised portfolio, average heating and cooling consumption is ~30 kWh/m²/year.
For context, a strong Class A EPC benchmark begins around ≤ 92 kWh/m²/year. In other words: we operate at a fraction of that threshold. We also see sample 25 m² offices—occupied roughly 90% of the working week—running at ~26 kWh/m²/year.
Move in. Check the box. Keep your capital.
Two Paths for 2026
As Excelsiorlaan 44 approaches opening, the choice is straightforward:
- Traditional lease: inherit outdated infrastructure, then spend months and major CapEx retrofitting—while simultaneously trying to build credible energy reporting and ESG proof.
- Excelsiorlaan 44 (Workways Brussels): move into a high-spec HQ with modern controls, measurable performance, and zero fit-out CapEx.
Smart asset management doesn’t cost the earth. Literally.
We’re currently conducting hard-hat tours for Q3 occupancy.
[Book a Commercial Strategy Tour of Excelsiorlaan 44]
Workways — The Growth Engine.