Page 261 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

SUSTAINABLE BROKERAGE 239

tion for the blood, sweat, toil, and tears (not to mention time) it takes to make any-
place our place.
Each of us in the brokerage division has a slightly different sense of the type of
community that speaks to us, the kind of work we each would particularly like to fos-
ter. Some of us tend toward an agrarian setting, a cluster of village houses set along-
side untouched open fields. Others prefer a more urban, in-fill environment, one that
is intimate and seamlessly melds elements of work, live, and play. Some of us have a
preference for a heterogeneous coastal village community, while others see them-
selves as part of a mixed-use, mixed income, diverse community. Despite our indi-
vidual preferences, however, we all gravitate toward phrases like “timeless design,”
“preservation,” “authentic,” and “community-oriented.”
To make the professional work of brokerage both personal and close to home, we
have begun to ask our brokers what type of community they would like to foster in
their own back yard. That, in a nutshell, is the critical re-framing of brokerage work.

TAKING OWNERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY
Re-framing brokerage by personalizing its context goes hand-in-hand with taking
direct ownership of the development deals one brokers. By definition, a broker is a
person who arranges contracts for a fee or commission. A broker can make connec-
tions, act as a go-between, negotiate, mediate, deliver messages, or represent. As real
estate brokers, we are the people in the middle of deals, but it’s hardly neutral terri-
tory. We are far from unaffected by what transpires.
Real estate brokers have multiple points of entry into the building process, from the
sale of undeveloped land to assembling parcels for development to facilitating the sale
of buildings and leasing. We have the capacity, if we so choose, to seek out particular
developers and types of development that fit with the sense of community we would
like to foster. We also have the capacity—though we haven’t exercised it all that
often—to say “no” when it comes to representing certain developers and types of
development that do not fit with our sustainable ethos.
At each point of entry into development deals, we also have the opportunity—if we
choose to take it—to educate and advocate for green building and sustainability.
(We’ll discuss this in greater detail later in this chapter.) As sustainable brokers, we
can also help our clients to both improve their financial bottom lines and have posi-
tive social and environmental impacts. Sustainable brokers, because of this triple bot-
tom line focus, are aware that the ways clients develop their land, construct their
buildings, and build out the spaces they lease can have lasting consequences that
affect, for better or for worse, the communities where we live and work. This aware-
ness brings with it the recognition that what we do affects our own back yard—a place
we might variously define as the block where we live, our neighborhood, our town,
our county, our watershed, our state, our country, or our planet. It is for our own sakes
and our families’ and our clients’ that we are entitled, even obligated, to do more than
simply facilitate deals and collect commissions.