Green Building’s Bottom Line Comes into Focus

November 29, 2006

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A new white paper from Building Design and Construction (via Jetson Green) reviews the financial and economic dimensions of green building across 10 different building types. Here’s the white paper’s 10-point action plan for green building stakeholders:

1. State and local government pension funds and so called socially responsible investors should be encouraged to allocate a portion of their portfolios to appropriate green real estate investments.

2. Construction union pension funds and union-based insurance companies should consider allocating a share of their assets into green buildings.

3. Research should be conducted on best practices for measuring the investment criteria of green real estate.

4. The major risk-rating agencies, along with investment banks, commercial banks, and private equity fund managers, need to be brought into the green building fold.

5. State and local governments seeking to promote private-sector green building in their localities should use the carrot, not the stick, as a motivator.

6. Cities that mandate LEED certification for private-sector projects should provide an appeals process for noncertified projects that meet the performance standard.

7. Building code officials, the International Code Council,and construction trade unions need to work together to overcome obstacles to green building posed by current building codes and regulations and to optimize the use of new green technologies.

8. Building owners need to invest in commissioning their properties and sponsoring post-occupancy and O&M evaluations of their buildings.

9. Researchers should continue to study worker and student performance, employee and student health, hospital patient outcomes, and other human factors related to green buildings.

10. The legal profession needs to examine potential liability issues resulting from developers and owners failing to build to green standards.

Download the whitepaper (free registration required).

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