This field contains data about the total Gross Internal Area (GIA) for commercial use. The value can be recorded to three decimal places.

All higher education providers (HEPs).

A commercial space is regarded as one where the occupant of the specified space is a third party and not the HE provider or a subsidiary of them. A subsidiary will be wholly or partly owned by a provider, and will hold a controlling interest. The third party does not have to be paying rent. In addition, the occupying staff would not be expected to be on the University payroll.

The commercial space should be a permanent allocation, rather than a temporary leasing of for example, a lecture theatre hired out for a conference. Typically, there would be a lease agreement in place.

Principles of returning commercial space

Commercial space that can be separately identified as a discrete area together with all associated costs, for example energy, waste, and emissions should be excluded from the EMR.

Where the associated costs, such as waste and energy cannot be separately identified for a commercial space area, this is when the commercial space area should be included in the EMR, and for example in the Total GIA commercial space field. Providers should return the commercial space area as per other areas under the appropriate space measurement field, for example Residential GIA. The associated costs should also be included in the return. Providers should also return the space as part of the total commercial space fields for GIA and NIA. This way, the total commercial space area can be distinguished from either Total GIA or Total NIA.

Total GIA commercial space is not used in the calculation of Total GIA.