Innovation for Commercial Retrofit: What Works and What Scales

Commercial retrofit is one of the most urgent and underdelivered challenges facing UK real estate. While the technologies and solutions needed to create more sustainable, efficient and future-proof buildings are increasingly available, adoption remains stubbornly slow. 

Recent research with industry leaders highlights the challenge: 31% identify weak business cases as one of the leading barriers to retrofit, alongside policy uncertainty, while only 16% cite access to finance. This points to a wider challenge - the bottleneck is not simply a lack of technology or capital, but the internal frameworks, evidence and decision-making needed to build a compelling case for action and turn ambition into investment. 

In November 2026, Real Estate:UK, the UK PropTech Association and the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) will bring together 100 decision-makers and practitioners involved in designing, delivering and investing in commercial retrofit. 

This will be an action-orientated working session rather than a technology showcase, focused on the practical challenges and opportunities involved in accelerating adoption. Through presentations from industry leaders and practitioners with experience delivering retrofit in practice, alongside structured, themed table discussions, participants will explore proven approaches, real-world case studies, business-case development, ROI and the organisational changes needed to move projects forward. 

A key part of the programme will be real-world case studies from real estate organisations, showcasing how they are working with PropTech and other solution providers to address specific retrofit challenges and deliver tangible outcomes. Rather than solution providers simply presenting their products, these sessions will put the focus on the real estate challenge, the approach taken, what was implemented and the lessons learned. 

The event will bring together real estate leaders, sustainability professionals, technology and solution providers, investors and other stakeholders to explore what is needed to move from ambition to implementation - and how innovation can play a practical role in accelerating more sustainable commercial buildings. 

The aim is simple: to move the conversation beyond why retrofit matters and towards what needs to change to make it happen - giving participants practical insights, evidence, case studies and ideas they can take back into their organisations and turn into action.