ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance releases whitepaper and toolkit

Washington, DC The Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Greenprint Center for Building Performance has released a new whitepaper and toolkit on embedding sustainability into real estate transactions. The Greenprint Center is a worldwide alliance of leading real estate owners, investors, and strategic partners committed to improving the environmental performance of the global real estate industry. Through measurement, benchmarking, knowledge sharing, and implementation of best practices, Greenprint and its members are striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030.

The report, Embedding Sustainability in Real Estate Transactions, produced in conjunction with View, Inc., is based on interviews with more than 30 real estate leaders from around the world, including members of Greenprint. The whitepaper outlines 11 strategic opportunities to embed sustainability into real estate transactions. These include:

• During acquisition due diligence look at actual energy expenses, not estimates;

• Include big ticket items in project financing;

• Upgrade building systems in the right order, and as soon as possible;

• Market your building to buyers that will pay a premium for sustainability.

“With governments passing ambitious new climate and energy policies, the private sector is getting more creative about how to build the business case for energy efficiency and sustainability, and more tactical about how and when they make investments in enhancing building performance,” said Billy Grayson, executive director for ULI’s Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance, which includes the Greenprint Center. “This report demonstrates the commitment ULI members are making to promote sustainability in their work and portfolios.”

The paper adds to ULI’s ongoing efforts to promote sustainable development practices and improve the resilience of communities worldwide, and to highlight the Institute’s role in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change that are related to the built environment.