More than one-third of real estate professionals said that “green construction” would not be in their real estate development plans in the next 12 - 18 months, according to the fourth annual Bryan Cave Real Estate Executives’ Forecast Survey. The study surveyed real estate executives from across the country.
Approximately 12 percent said they were “very” interested and 38 percent said they were “somewhat” interested. About 18 percent said they were neutral on the issue. The rest fell on the “unimportant” and “don’t know” side.
“The fact that the survey reveals such a substantial level of reluctance to embrace green construction is surprising,” said Barry Ross, a partner in Bryan Cave’s Real Estate Group. “Previously viewed as prohibitively expensive by the real estate community, green construction is not universally gaining ground because the true cost-effectiveness of green construction is still a matter of debate.”
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Comments
The problem is not that the cost-effectiveness of green construction is still a matter of debate. There is still some debate about the cost-effectiveness of certain elements of green construction, but the real problem is that the developers of both residential and commercial buildings are usually not the long-term owners of green buildings, and it is difficult for them to recover the up-front investments that are needed to do green construction.
Joe Dischinger May 18th, 2007Admittedly one of the barrers facing green design that inhibits better performing buildings is indeed the split incentive - people making the investment for better design do not realize the benefits. However once owners treat their buildings as an asset and improve the performance of the asset it is worth more- sell it tomorow for more value than they paid for it or creatively use the lower operating costs to lure tenants with lower cost leases - those making the investment then reap the benefit.
Michael McAteer August 23rd, 2007