It's Not Easy, Leasing Green

It's Not Easy, Leasing Green
Published: September 16, 2007
By Eugene Gilligan, Senior Editor

The business community at large may want green offices, but the brokers charged with facilitating those transitions are also being called to lead by example. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder then words, notes Jackson Lehr, an associate for sustainability marketing & consulting firm GreenOrder. Two recent announcements signal that commercial real estate services firms and their brokers are headed in the right direction, he said.

In late May, CB Richard Ellis Inc. announced plans to make all its properties, worldwide, carbon neutral by 2010. And in July, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. formed an energy and sustainability global services group that integrates and expands the environmental sustainability services the firm delivers to clients.

Jones Lang LaSalle's division is a strong move, Lehr said. But unless its brokers understand green initiatives and can speak about them with authority, the push to educate and sell clients will stall. That is why he contended that Act for a Cleaner Tomorrow, the company's internal initiative to reduce energy, water and paper usage at its 160 worldwide offices, and CB Richard Ellis' carbon neutral initiative are key steps in enabling their brokers to sell green.

"On the brokerage side, rapid progress is being made," Lehr said. "These internal actions are going to inform their external offerings. If these companies green their own practices, they will be better positioned to service their clients and help them do the same."

More Than Energy Savings

When the time comes to negotiate green benchmarks into a lease, brokers should not pit landlord against tenant, said Greg O'Brien, a LEED-accredited professional and a senior vice president for CresaPartners L.L.C. Instead, they should try to forge a collaborative relationship between the two sides. If an office tenant wants light sensors installed but the landlord wants the tenant to pay for it, the sensors likely will not see the light of day. Rather, brokers should try to get the landlord and tenant to split the cost of installation.

Brokers also can educate corporate users about government incentives for green initiatives, O'Brien said. "New York City, for example, speeds permitting if you are building a green building. That really opens eyes."

The green discussion sometimes starts and stops at the same point—the amount of electricity a building uses—at the expense of other green measures, Lehr said. Brokers can better serve clients by making sure that water- saving measures and the improved worker productivity associated with quality indoor environments enter the discussion. Brokers should also bring to the table the benefits to the environment and to occupants of dense and transit-oriented development.

To boost brokers' knowledge of the benefits and roadblocks of green features, O'Brien hosts about 25 seminars annually at CresaPartners offices and at industry conferences. The seminars last between 45 minutes and one hour. A recent seminar at the company's Cincinnati office hosted both brokers and clients, and O'Brien brought in a University of Cincinnati professor of architecture to speak. "We bring (brokers) up to speed on various initiatives from the U.S. Green Building Council and educate them in the vernacular," O'Brien said. "We define what sustainability means, what green means. It can be a steep learning curve."

Transwestern executive managing director of client services Mychele Lord makes sure her company's brokers receive written material on green issues and aims to meet with all her company's brokers to update them. Knowledge about green initiatives is in more demand than ever before, she said. "Since the beginning of this year, we've been getting many requests from our tenant advisory services team to learn about green," she noted, adding that, more recently, Transwestern has been getting more requests from building owners.

Some services firms use larger vehicles like annual meetings to improve employees' green knowledge. Green was the theme at Studley Inc.s companywide conference and CB Richard Ellis' World Conference this summer. Well-known green architect and author William McDonough spoke at Studley's event, and CB Richard Ellis had both Al Gore and U.S. Green Building Council president & founder Rick Fedrizzi.

Green education for brokers takes many forms at The Staubach Co., said Colin Haynes, senior vice president of the Northeast & director of design and construction consulting services for the company. The firm offered a LEED for Brokers course, including discussions about trends and the latest legislative news, at four of its major metropolitan offices and plans to offer it at the company's annual meeting. At its Baltimore, Tysons Corner, Va., and Washington, D.C. offices, Staubach also offers preparation sessions for brokers and design and construction professionals who want to take the LEED accreditation examination.

Taking advantage of its global footprint, brokers in Cushman & Wakefield Inc.'s European offices share best practices with their U.S. counterparts, as Europe has been faster to adopt green building measures, said Bruce Ficke, executive vice president for the company's global clients solutions group. The company also has taken steps to make case studies involving Cushman & Wakefield green-building deals available companywide.

Jones Lang LaSalle, meanwhile, plans to launch its Sustainability University to tutor employees on green building practices, likely through a combination of live and virtual classes. And the company recently encouraged accreditation by sending to all employees an e-mail that outlined the steps to LEED certification and to registering for the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED-accreditation class.

Additionally, the firm's research group is developing a list of sustainable office buildings, said Diane Vrkic, global COO of the new energy and sustainability services group. "The supply of these buildings is not keeping up with demand," she said. "That research would be very valuable to our brokerage group."

Gathering data on both the costs and benefits of going green is a big leap forward, Lehr said, though he added that brokers must also share this information with tenants, landlords and other companies in the real estate value chain for the information to do any good.

Being conversant with green building issues and metrics will certainly build business, but lacking these skills could also diminish business, said Jacque Ducharme, vice chairman of the West for Studley. "The broker is going to play a central role," he said. "If a broker doesn't know the difference between green and not green, that broker's tool belt isn't complete." n

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