An independent, 10-year study of 300 office buildings in Canada and the United States shows that going green dramatically improves the bottom line for office landlords and developers.
The buildings in the study are all from Bentall Kennedy’s North American office portfolio and include Vancouver properties.
Nils Kok of Maastricht University in the Netherlands and Avis Devine of the University of Guelph in Ontario conducted the study, which was published in the September 2015 Journal of Portfolio Management. The research analyzes 10 years of financial performance data across an office portfolio totalling 58 million square feet (34 million square feet in the U.S., 24 million square feet in Canada).
Overall, the results provide evidence that buildings with sustainable certification outperform similar non-green buildings in rental rates, occupancy levels and lease renewal probability. They also save energy.
Sustainable buildings in the study included those designed to LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) standards, U.S. Energy Star certification and BOMA Best, an international energy performance guideline from the Building Owners and Managers Association. •
