Reporting · November 2025 · 9 min read

Readingapost-occupancyreport

Sustainability numbers are easy to quote and easy to fudge. A trustworthy report makes its baseline, its boundary and its sources legible enough to argue with.

By Ruthwik, Partner · Architect & Urban Designer

Reading a post-occupancy report

Start with the baseline

A claim of forty per cent less energy is meaningless until you know forty per cent less than what. A comparable conventional building, a code-minimum reference, and the site's own previous year are three very different baselines that produce three very different headlines.

Good reports name the baseline in the same breath as the number. If the baseline is missing, treat the number as marketing.

Follow the figure to a source

Every headline should trace to something physical: a meter reading, a delivery note, a waste-transfer record. When a figure cannot be followed back to a source, it cannot be defended in a boardroom, and it should not be in the report.

This is the standard we hold our own reporting to, and the reason our sample report shows the shape of the evidence rather than only the conclusions.

Takeaways

  • No baseline, no number. Always ask what the figure is measured against.
  • Every headline should trace to a meter, invoice or record.
  • Prefer reports that show evidence, not just conclusions.

Next in the journal

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