Tendencies on the Global Property Markets:
Rise of Green Building Certifications
According to the research conducted by Commercial Real Estate Services (CRES) and Maastricht University (the Netherlands), the vast majority of offices across the world adhere to “green” building certification programs. It appears to be that almost 20 percent of premises in ten markets in Australia, Canada, and Europe became “green” in comparison to less than 7 percent back in 2007.
Canadians are the leaders with almost 52 percent of premises in Canadian cities (Toronto and Vancouver) having “green” certifications. In fact, Vancouver has set a goal to become the world's greenest city by 2020. Both cities will definitely demonstrate new trends in the field of office construction. Currently, more than 750 thousand square feet of offices under construction are being built in accordance with top green norms. Meanwhile, Toronto is improving its A-class product with one goal – to receive the green certification.
Merely a few years ago there were not so many offices with “green” spaces. However, the demand is growing. Governments, office tenants, property investors want to see such innovations. For example, Sydney and Melbourne had less than 1 percent of “green” parts, while now they demonstrate over 46 percent and almost 29 percent, respectively. Talking about Warsaw, there was no such a thing as “green” office market in 2010. Currently, about 21.3 percent of premises correspond to the criteria of being “green”.
Even those markets where green offices are not that popular show a significant growth in the overall number of spaces provided.
Green offices are ahead of the market in some of these cities. A representative of office space rental companies notes that this became possible because commercial properties are always in the middle of discussions about utility consumption, waste, gas emissions. Thus, stakeholders started to give more consideration to the programs of green building certification.
There is also an opinion that investors and renters want to have a clear measurement of environmental performance. That is why such certification programs appear.
