Page 138 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

FINANCING GREEN PROJECTS 115

Global put it in the introduction to their recent conference on sustainability and real
estate, “The trend toward taking the Triple Bottom Line approach to business continues
to accelerate, and we have reached a tipping point—sustainability of people, planet,
and profit is now a mandate for multinational companies operating in a global economy.
What does this mean for practitioners of real estate and workplace strategy?”
We are beginning to see what it means in these results. Most property investment
executives say they’re going beyond minimum legal requirements to address social or
environmental issues. Many are promoting energy and natural resource conservation,
engaging with key stakeholders affected by their work, and recognizing sustainability
and social responsibility in business strategies and value statements. A third or more
say they’ve invested in socially and environmentally beneficial properties like urban
infill, green buildings, brownfields, and transit-oriented development. More than a
third say their organization recognizes the efficiencies associated with RPI. Another
30 percent go farther, saying it’s in their self-interest to make it part of their business
strategy. And 10 percent report being Sustaining Organizations that are fundamentally
committed to RPI and actively promoting it in business and society.
What’s driving this apparent transformation? According to our real estate’s top exec-
utives the primary drivers are business concerns: avoiding risks associated with
environmental or social problems that could harm returns and seeking opportunities
associated with consumer interest in health, community, equity, and ecology.
Although ethics and volunteerism are also at play, the importance of business moti-
vation in the process bodes well for the future of RPI.

In 2006, New York–based developer Jonathan Rose created the Rose Smart Growth
Investment Fund to invest in green building projects. The $100 million limited partnership
focuses on acquiring existing properties near mass transit. The fund expects to make green
improvements to the properties and hold them as long-term investments.* The focus on
transit-centric developments takes into account the energy savings from enabling people to
use mass transit. The fund’s first project is in downtown Seattle, Washington, a renovation
of the 1920s-era Joseph Vance and Sterling buildings, a total building area of about
†
120,000 square feet, with ground-floor retail and office space above. According to the
Fund, it is “rebranding these buildings as the ‘greenest and healthiest’historic buildings in
the marketplace, to increase market awareness of the buildings, attract and retain tenants.”
Many nonprofits have successfully used greening their buildings to attract funds for
renovation projects. In 2000, the Ecotrust nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, received a
major gift from a single donor to renovate a 100-year-old, two-story brick warehouse
into a three-story, 70,000-square-foot modern building with two floors of offices above
ground-floor retail. The Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center was only the second LEED
‡
Gold–certified project in the United States when it opened in 2001. LEED buildings
are being built by a wide range of nonprofit groups, including the Chicago Center for
Neighborhood Technology; the Boston-based Artists for Humanity; the Natural

*New York Times, January 10, 2007.
† Jonathan Rose Companies [online], www.rose-network.com/projects/index.html, accessed March 6, 2007.
‡ Ecotrust [online], www.ecotrust.org/ncc/index.html, accessed March 6, 2007.