Denver, CO, May 3, 2007--Leaders of the green building movement urged members of CoreNet Global, concluding their spring Summit in Denver today, to implement sustainable building practices across their corporate real estate portfolios that reward them for saving -not spending - money and for eventually becoming producers of energy, not users.
Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Doug Gatlin, Director of National Accounts for the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED® program both offered recommendations for how the corporate real estate and workplace executives who have been meeting here since Sunday, should take a more prominent role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the $1.2 trillion worth of office and industrial buildings CoreNet Global members own or lease.
Lovins, an influential energy expert, recommends that commercial structures be "net producers of energy, clean water, beauty, perhaps food." And added that "our buildings should make people healthier, happier and higher-performing," in remarks delivered to CoreNet Global members. Lovins challenged the group to design buildings that cost less to own and operate.
To arrive at those goals Lovins, who has been an energy advisor to business and government for several decades, urged the association of corporate real estate executives to adopt performance-based design fees so that building owners would get paid for what they save, not what they spend. As an example, he said the industry should correct, "one of the roughly two dozen perverse incentives that have made the U.S. misallocate $1 trillion of capital just to air-conditioning."
Gatlin meanwhile, touted the USGBC's new enterprise-level program to promote sustainable building practices. The Portfolio Program, currently in pilot phase, focuses on the permanent integration of green building and operational measures - portfolio-wide - into the standard business practices of companies and organizations.
Gatlin urged attendees at the Denver Global Summit, "take action to rapidly implement green building practices across their portfolios in order to directly address global environmental challenges." He added that CoreNet Global members should, "adopt these things today, not five years from now."
The USGBC's LEED® director appealed directly to those CoreNet Global members with large portfolios by recommending volume LEED® certification because it "allows a lot of scaling for certifying multiple projects."
In a study released Monday by CoreNet Global and the Rocky Mountain Institute called, "The Energy Challenge: A New Agenda for Corporate Real Estate," the two groups strongly urged the corporate real estate industry to dramatically increase energy efficiency in office and industrial buildings.
CoreNet Global members manage US $1.2 trillion in worldwide corporate assets consisting of owned and leased office, industrial and other space. With 7,000 members representing large corporations around the world, CoreNet Global (www.corenetglobal.org) operates in five global regions: Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and North America.
