Green Building Labels: What Does the Certification Push Bring?

Large corporations in particular are increasingly making a green building label a prerequisite for leasing new space (71.5 percent). This is the result of the current Commercial Real Estate Barometer, which is regularly surveyed on the occasion of the Schwaiger Broker Lounge in Munich.

The report states that the pressure for certification is coming from large national companies, but above all from abroad, such as Switzerland. More than eight out of ten real estate experts now share the opinion that international corporations are currently demanding green labels even more than German ones.

"Anglo-Saxon countries are one step ahead of us, as they are in many areas of the future. It is not enough to establish the highest possible standards at the national level. We live in a global business world and therefore also need a cross-national catalog of criteria that reflects the quality standards for real estate in which we still want to work and live in 50 years' time," explains Michael Schwaiger, CEO of the Schwaiger Group.

Motives for renting green certified properties

According to the barometer, companies are willing to dig deeper into their pockets for the green label. 43 percent of the brokers assume that companies are now prepared to spend up to five percent more for green-certified offices. 28.6 percent estimate that it will be five to ten percent more on average and another 28.6 even up to 25 percent. According to the brokers, the most important reasons are reduced operating and ancillary costs (life cycle costs), corporate social responsibility (CSR) and image enhancement (57 percent each).

The fourth most important criterion cited by real estate experts is advantages in recruiting young staff, followed by improving internal climate targets. Because green building labels also require, for example, the use of emission-free materials in the interior or the minimum distance from smoking points to the property, occupational health management is playing an increasing role in addressing issues such as employee health, well-being and performance. Schwaiger:

"In the end, these certificates are a kind of independent quality assurance. Companies know what they can expect from LEED- or BREEAM-certified properties in terms of energy consumption and water efficiency, but also with regard to indoor air quality or mobility offerings."

Direct correlation: awareness and relevance

According to the survey, the best-known certificate among brokers is LEED (100 percent), closely followed by DGNB and BREEAM (86 percent). The Austrian ÖGNI label and the local BNB are known by 43 percent of brokers. The certificate GEFMA 160, which specializes in sustainability in facility management, brings up the rear (29 percent).

"It stands to reason that, in the opinion of brokers, relevance roughly follows awareness of the labels. The absolute frontrunner is LEED," says Michael Schwaiger, CEO of the Schwaiger Group. According to Schwaiger, there is a lack of expertise in this area even among real estate professionals. Almost a third of the property brokers admit to not knowing what the various certificates stand for in detail (28.6 percent) and another 14 percent speak of "dangerous half-knowledge" themselves.

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