Building Green in the Mainstream

Here are some facts about the sustainable construction or the green office market, now one of the fastest growing segments of the commercial building market, taken directly from Walecia Konrad’s recent article (not on the web yet) in Fast Company, April 2007, "Faultless Towers:"

- An estimated 5% of all new U.S. commercial construction received the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification last year

- By 2010, 10% of all new commercial construction will be sustainable, according to the McGraw-Hill 2006 SmartMarket Report

- Renovated buildings according to green standards can often bring 3% higher rents and a 7.5% increase in a building’s value, according to the McGraw-Hill report

The thrust of the Fast Company article is to highlight the growing number of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that have made a "substantial commitment to new or renovated green buildings," including private REITs managed by the likes of GE Real Estate and the Blackstone Group. Since our readers are clearly not at this site for investment advice, I’ll only point the curious few to some they say "the little guy" can access for further research - Fred Alger Management’s Spectra Green Fund and Liberty Property Trust.

For my part, I'll note how green building is getting lodged increasingly in the mainstream flow of private capital, which bodes well for its continued movement from cause celebre to baseline commercial standard.

Carla E. Dearing