IT is a tremendous resource in the fight against climate change. So much of our gains in energy efficiency are due to data analysis and just in time communication that we sometimes forget about the climate impacts of the IT industry. Google’s recent carbon footprint report declares the company is responsible for approximately the same amount of carbon emissions as the United Nations, and that the footprint continues to climb. This is just a fraction of the carbon emitted to use Google, as related emissions, such as the energy consumed by a user’s computer, are excluded.

It is plain good sense to track and manage the carbon emissions of IT services, data centres and telecommunications networks. Yet, The Carbon Disclosure Project’s 2011 Global 500 Report on the largest organisations in the world found “the sector with the lowest average performance score was Information Technology (band C).” In 2012, the Carbon Disclosure Project will release its first Sustainable ICT (IT) module, designed to create more transparency on carbon performance and management in a sector that is crucial to achieving our climate change mitigation goals throughout the global economy. Things are changing in the IT sector, slowly but surely, as awareness and financial costs of environmental issues build amongst consumers, suppliers and investors.

As I attended a conference on green buildings a few days ago, it struck me to see the panelists conclude on a paradox: ‘green buildings are more valuable, but they have no sale or rent premium’. The (non-evidenced) added value resided for them in better ‘lettability’ and lower obsolescence rates thanks to reduced energy charges.

This begs the question: why would there be no green building premiums in the UK when they have been demonstrated in the Netherlands, the US and Australia?

Firstly, there seems a lack of publicly available data to demonstrate this point. For the panellists, the measure of a green building in the UK is its BREEAM rating, but, as pointed out last year by UK Green Building Council, this data is regrettably not publicly disclosed, making market evaluations problematic.

Secondly, the energy saving argument for green buildings’ value is not convincing, because it is based on shaky grounds linked to a dilemma: operational v. design performance. Developers like “Low Carbon Workplace” have established that buildings rarely behaved as planned. Therefore, if savings cannot actually be predicted, prospective buyers/ occupiers can find it difficult paying a higher price for it. This is why for instance the Technology Strategy Board has dedicated £8m to fund studies evaluating the operational performance results of different design strategies.

This should encourage all of us in the real estate sector to think beyond the dialectic “value = energy savings”. Other impacts, already in current certification schemes, need to be added to the equation, like health & well-being (in particular the link with occupier productivity), transport or materials resourcing. We should also consider what makes a building truly sustainable over time: its resilience to flood risk, ground subsidence or overheating, and its connection with the local community.

We hear so much about sustainability, yet there feels to be so little when it comes to results. More often than not, sustainability in real estate means only getting marketing credit with a green building certification label like LEED. Is this seemingly superficial driver good or bad? In my opinion, it is good. Some action is better than no action.

In India, bad real estate practices are easy to find. The average building is glazed in all directions without much of concern for the increase in air conditioning loads. Despite being located in a tropical environment; data centers do not often implement basic principles such as ‘hot-aisle/ cold-aisle’ and minimizing mixing of hot and cold air. Many occupants are not aware of how their energy is used in different systems in a facility.. Government leaders talk about making energy audits mandatory but haven’t pulled the trigger, despite having brought out an Energy Conservation Building Code.

There is so much noise that many are not able to decide on the best course of action. Though there is no concerted or focused approach, the certification programs are providing some guidelines in the right direction.

Some of the sustainability principles one sees include rainwater harvesting, employee engagement, green teams, turning off lights, energy savings, carpooling, travel to office by cycle, video conferencing instead of travel, lowering carbon footprint through renewable energy, recycling, waste management, composting, etc.. It is interesting to note that the measures implemented are either due to government regulations or a drive to gain corporate image. Rainwater harvesting is a typical example of such a measure which is popular in parts of India due to governmental regulations.

Though certification is not an end in itself, it is changing behavior and initiates a process of ‘take action and move on’.

In our work in developing sustainability strategies for international corporations that have large portfolios of leased spaces, we’re finding some interesting behavioral links between three key areas: employee comfort and wellbeing,  corporate social responsibility; and operational savings.

We know, of course, that improving the health and comfort of employees can help to boost productivity – which, in turn, tends to be good for the bottom line. Corporate social responsibility can also have a direct positive impact on the bottom line – for example, when employees are keen to conserve energy in their workplace and make thoughtful use of resources. Service to the community also reflects well on the organization’s reputation in the marketplace. But in addition to the marketing benefits, working together to “do good” is a catalyst for internal team-building, which is a great morale booster. This is good for productivity – and indirectly – the bottom line. 

The flip side is that there can be negative feedback loops as well. For example, cutting costs by saving energy on heating, cooling and lighting or cramming employees into smaller spaces can have a negative impact on comfort and wellbeing – and hence on productivity. It can also erode morale and de-motivate employees so they don’t feel so much like engaging in corporate social responsibility activities.

The point to be made is that if a company introduces energy savings under the pretext of “being more sustainable”, and if employees are going to suffer for it, then they’ll see right through the so called “sustainability agenda”. But if they see that there are also efforts to support their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their community, then they will be willing to “do their bit” by putting up with a little less air conditioning or sharing an office with a colleague.

At the recent NACUBO conference, one of the hot topics was the shortage of capital and endowment funds and the limited potential to increase tuition fees. Nevertheless a number of successful universities are guided by a vision of sustainability. Their success was captured by the key note speaker Jim Collins, who urged universities to “reject the idea-well intentioned, but dead wrong-that the primary path to greatness in the social sector is to become “more like a business”. He argued that most businesses fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are “great”. Greatness requires among other attributes discipline and focus. That type of discipline and focus can often come from sustainability plans which not only set up a roadmap for achieving the vision but also warn of the pitfalls along the way such as  financial, reputational risks.

Fortunately universities with successful sustainability plans, such as Arizona State, University of Washington, Middlebury, to mention a few, realize the importance having a positive sustainability feedback loop that includes a measure of financial success. It is through this process that they have managed to harness sufficient resources for continual improvement.

Today we have our 20st annual real estate symposium. Here we present the results from our annual research study among institutional investors. A ‘golden brick’ is awarded for the best institutional investor every year. This year the topic is ‘Generations in real estate’. Since several years sustainability is one of the topics addressed in our research study. In 2010, we’ve introduced the ‘green brick’ for the most sustainable investor, to motivate all investors to further pick up this important real estate topic: sustainability.

This year, we have based this award on the results of the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) for all participating Dutch real estate funds.

Around 17 CET Unibail Rodamco will be awarded with the ‘Green brick 2011’ being the most sustainable investor of the year. The GRESB results show that Unibail-Rodamco outperforms its Dutch peers on Management and Policy (87%) as well as for Implementation & Measurement (63%). The Dutch average for the latter is 16%. On a global level Unibal-Rodamco takes the 28^th place from 340 participating funds. Within Europe they are number 10 out of 195. From all 70 global participating listed funds Unibail-Rodamco is number 8.

I’m proud to say Jones Lang LaSalle is a member of the GRESB advisory board; which has already evaluated this years’ GRESB benchmark and is preparing for next year. Hopefully also then more funds will participate and we can again award the ‘Green brick’ for the most sustainable Dutch Investor. In the meantime our Greendesk (Dutch sustainability consultant team) continues to advise our clients on sustainability and support both investors and corporate occupiers with the opportunity to ‘green’ their real estate. For 2012 we’ll also publish a research study on sustainability within the Dutch corporate occupier market as a follow up on the 2008 and 2010 reports.

On 30 September, the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) officially and finally launches in the UK. It is the first incentive scheme of its kind anywhere in the world and has a lot of people excited…or at least those of us ‘in the know’! What makes it especially interesting for the UK property market is that it is geared to the owners of commercial and industrial property – and that’s who and what we know best! The incentive allows for the use of technologies such as biomass boilers, ground and water-source heat pumps, small-scale solar thermal and biogas combustion in certain instances and pays for the heat metered per KWh over a 20-year period.

The challenge for us is to spread the word on the RHI to clients, so they understand that heating and hot water represents over half of their energy usage and spend, and so we can help them save carbon and cash. When it comes to replacing end-of-life heating (and cooling) systems, clients need to stop doing what they’ve always done…replacing like for like. They need some fresh thinking…and what we are hoping is that the financial and environmental attractions of this incentive will encourage them to do just that, but we need more people ‘in the know’…so now that you’ve read this…go on…let someone else know…and tell them (and remind yourself) to ask me more about the new RHI!

Practices adopted globally and applied to local markets can make all the difference for large organizations, specially multinationals. Outsourcing facility-related activities to market experts service providers offers organizations a level of know-how and expertise that only companies whose core business is this type of service are able to deliver. 

“By focusing exclusively on its core business activities the client takes major step towards improving internal services, reducing costs and developing sustainable practices”, explains George Amador, Director of Facilities – Jones Lang LaSalle Brazil.

Among the sustainable practices adopted by Jones Lang LaSalle the most prominent is the utilities management system, which is responsible for managing the use of water, electricity and gas. At Unilever, one of the largest consumer goods companies in Brazil, the Jones Lang LaSalle team in charge of Integrated Facility Management contributed for the company to reduce its power consumption by 4.5% and water consumption by 28.5% in 2010. Energy savings were achieved by replacing regular lamps for LED ones and introducing occupancy sensors in the stairway, as well as by replacing the existing power generators for new and more efficient ones.

Unilever states that the company goals for the coming years in Brazil regarding sustainable practices are ambitious and that Jones Lang LaSalle is aligned with all of them.

On one recent occasion when I returned to our Singapore corporate office on a Sunday afternoon to work (I hope my boss is reading this) and to my surprise, I didn’t feel like a Peking Duck sitting in a baking oven even though the central air-conditioning wasn’t on.

Our office is situated in a 16-year-old skyscraper, whose designers obviously had figured out how to create a good insulated envelope. But when I took a closer look, I saw that the façade uses tinted single-glazing, a glass type with one of the worst insulation values in the market (probably the only economically viable glass type back then). Then how in the world did this building manage to keep its cool?

The secret lies in its window-to-wall ratio (WWR). The smaller the ratio, the less direct sunlight / heat energy can penetrate through the glazed surfaces. Not rocket science! However, the popular architecture “fad” nowadays, is to take concrete / brick walls (which act as a shield to sun and heat energy) totally out of the envelope equation and build curtain-wall glass towers. Some of these tried to minimize the heat-gaining effect by specifying high-insulation glasses. But do you know the best high-insulation glasses have similar insulation value as 1~2-inches thick cardboard? I can already see the utility bills mounting up from running jumbo-sized chillers to cool these big cardboard boxes!

Closely resembling structures, to these glass towers, were built as early as the 13^th century – green houses. I can understand applying this concept in buildings located in high-latitude countries to reduce heating energy bills, but this is not exactly an energy-conscious design for a building in a tropical climate country like Singapore… unless the intent is to make people feel like a Peking Duck on a Sunday afternoon? 

Could the architects have done a better job designing environmentally friendly and sensible commercial buildings, or are there other forces in play that force them to design giant glass towers in tropical countries? I know one explanation why inch-thick glasses replace foot-thick concrete walls in Singapore, where real estate prices like gold. But if you place high value on sustainable (financial & environmental) long-term operation, do pose this question to your architect. In the end, I hope the consideration for the environment and overall life-cycle operation will prevail.

The office market in the Greater Paris region is now boasting 10% of certified floor space. After only six years since Green Building certification was introduced into the French market, over 5 million square meters (54 million s.f.) of offices have received the French green building certificate HQE which signifies high environmental quality. It is comparable to the other main green building certification systems used around the world. Started in 2005 to cover new constructions it has been extended to buildings in use and renovated buildings.

Demand for green buildings is particularly strong from large listed companies who are keen to provide high performance office space to their employees and clients. These large corporations are making green credentials of buildings more and more a criteria for office selection.

In parallel to this voluntary approach by developers and end users, the French Government has launched an ambitious environmental regulatory drive to help put the French economy and society on a sustainable development path. At the core of this large set of laws are energy efficiency and carbon emission reductions. New buildings will have to reduce their energy consumption by 50% compared to the current legislation and all existing properties need to bring down their energy usage by some 40% by 2020.

The combined result of strong voluntary commitment to green buildings and a stimulating regulatory framework will continue boosting the greening of French office market.