Page 157 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

136 CHAPTER 4

There needs to be a change in the way leases are crafted so that the interests of the
landlord and the tenant are better aligned to share in the benefits of green properties.
We need to have real estate brokers who are knowledgeable about the benefits of
sustainable development. They should be conversant with the LEED scorecard as well
as educated about the technologies that are used in the construction of green buildings.
The value brokers can bring to a transaction is dependent on how well they educate
themselves, the way they communicate this new green paradigm with buyers and sell-
ers, and how they orchestrate and connect the different parties involved. Like a spider
in the web, the broker is often the key person linking places with people. A sustain-
ably oriented broker has a key role to play in orchestrating the interaction between a
developer that may not yet have contemplated a green development with a builder that
has extensive experience in meeting LEED requirements.
I suppose my wish list is rather extensive. There are days when my colleagues and
I are impatient to run down that checklist to see just how far we have come. The finan-
cial benefits of developing green are starting to be recognized. As the demand for
green increases there will be more developers moving into this arena. With more play-
ers, there will be more knowledge and expertise in the market. The cost of green today
already is only marginally higher than standard development costs and will continue
to decline. Someday soon, people will wonder why a CFO took the time and energy
to make the financial case for building green because it will seem so self-evident.
Sometimes, our focus at Melaver, Inc. on such distant goals makes us lose sight of
day-to-day blocking and tackling and basic operational processes. We have to slow
down, regroup, catch our breath, and make sure we continue at a pace that is chal-
lenging but manageable, that stretches our capacity to learn and yet is still fun. We still
need to work on the work/life balance thing. And it would be nice if, every once in a
while, my notion of the color green was simply the distinct shade of the grass on a golf
course somewhere nearby.

NOTES
1 Jonathan Lash and Fred Wellington, “Competitive Advantage on a Warming Planet,” Harvard
Business Review, March 2007.
2 Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Enviro-
mental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2006), pp. 101–4.