A Sustainable Real Estate How-to for Owners

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns are exploding at companies around the globe—but how these concerns apply to building portfolios may not be obvious. In a new handbook, Devon Bertram of engineering and green building consulting firm Stok promotes “the adoption of sustainable and equitable real estate solutions” designed to help companies become “stewards in their communities.”

The handbook highlights four benefits of sustainable real estate:

• improved financial performance
• mitigation of environmental impacts and adaptation to climate impacts
• improved public profile
• enhanced occupant experience

To help owners reap these benefits, the guide details two phases of adopting a company-wide sustainable real estate program: development and management.

Development of the program entails effective stakeholder engagement and goal alignment, according to Bertram, while management requires effective implementation and monitoring. The document lays out a number of action steps and provides guidance on how to successfully move from one to the next. A brief section on change management helps readers understand the elements needed to ensure change actually takes place.

Bertram identifies examples of tangible outcomes of a sustainable real estate program, such as design and construction guidelines, a real estate carbon-reduction plan, green lease language, and procurement standards. “Every company has an opportunity to transform its real estate portfolio, regardless of scale, into an asset that has broad, quantifiable value beyond the market value itself,” the handbook concludes.

For more information:

Stok
stok.com