Real estate has a significant negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Did you know that emissions from commercial buildings are most influenced by tenants? Green leases are a new form of managing buildings, meant to solidify commitment to sustainability goals between building owners and tenants and improve the building’s social value and performance.
A recent article by Savills says that the best way to reduce negative impacts and improve the efficiency and productivity of the whole building is through collaboration. What’s more, the majority of a building’s social value potential comes from landlords and occupants working together.
Green leasing is a great way to mitigate sustainability risks and improve ways to manage the social and environmental performance of a building.
What does green leasing mean?
There is no standardised method of classifying a lease as ‘green’, but the article mentions that it includes documents and clauses that intend to have the landlord and its tenants commit to operating the buildings sustainably. This can be done per building, but also on a portfolio level. Green leases include agreements on things such as reducing energy consumption, emissions, resource, and waste. Green leases also need to address how sustainability data will be shared in both directions to facilitate optimal performance.
Sharing insights on sustainability
Green leases have many benefits: not only do they provide improvements for the environmental and social performance of the buildings, but it also helps real estate owners manage compliance and score significantly better on sustainability certifications.
The article on Savills adds: “It has the potential to enhance an organization’s reputation through benchmarking, improve the wellbeing of the building’s occupants, attract and retain talent through shared core values and provide assurance for tenants that their ESG priorities will be met.”
Have you thought of new ways to get your stakeholders and tenants to commit to greener real estate? hello energy provides a solution that puts all insights on sustainability at your fingertips and in plain sight. Discover more here.
Image credit: siyuan LI via Unsplash.