There has been a surge of hype about the so-called green premium, a bonus on valuation of a business, product or service because of its eco-friendly characteristics. According to The McKinsey Quarterly, “market research indicates that many consumers would pay up to 10 percent more for clean energy, and a surprising number say they would pay more than 10 percent”.
The green premium has nowhere been more discussed than in the commercial real estate sector, where leases will cost $672 billion, the market is highly competitive, and 30 percent of the operating cost of a building represents energy.
More than 100 case studies have been published on LEED certified projects, by the US Green Building Council. Last year, the first credible survey came out from CoStar. Their database includes 2.4 million properties, and in 2006 they began collecting information from properties on their LEED or Energy Star status. For the first time, a massive, stable real estate basis including building characteristics, and sales and leasing information has been linked to Energy Star and LEED buildings, and can be compared to sales and leasing information for comparable properties in the same markets.
