Those of you in the buildings industry–owners, tenants, vendors, service companies–are all feeling the impact of the global financial crisis. I co-authored an article elaborating on the opportunity of existing buildings that was published in Friday’s Boston Business Journal. However, today I wanted to elaborate further on this opportunity.
As a green building researcher, I believe that the impact of the current crisis on green buildings–especially the existing buildings–will only be a beneficial one because:
Owners are forced into a longer hold period for their buildings and are looking for ways to increase the value and future desireability of their existing buildings portfolio. Increasingly, the answer to the value and future desireability question is to move to “Class G” (Class Green) space in office buildings.
Innovation will occur. Reducing the availability of resources while maintaining expectations demands innovation. Innovation will occur in the green building industry from the front-line building managers and through research efforts (such as Sustainability Roundtable Inc’s), these innovations will become industry best-practices.
As “Green Jobs” continue to be the buzz of our future economy, Green Buildings will not be forgotten from the equation.
Economists are discussing the need to renew our infrastructure (think FDR). If you combine #3 with renewing infrastructure you will undoubtedly need to consider both how to make the infrastructure “green” as well as identify and address the needs of “green” buildings which the infrastructure will be ultimately supporting.
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