Page 272 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

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Again, we want to be very cautious in our discussion of financial incentives for sus-
tainable brokerage. This is a program that we have not thoroughly vetted. It may not
be rich enough to create the paradigm-changing traction we are seeking. It may, on the
other hand, be too rich. It may create unintended consequences for some of our other
divisions, where staff members are not compensated by such an incentive system.
And this particular incentive program might well cause “gaming the system,” a typi-
cal problem with most incentive-based compensation designs. It’s too early to tell
whether this particular program will be effective. What is clear to us, at least, is that
some type of incentive system is called for.

SHARING BEST PRACTICES
The next step in becoming a sustainable brokerage involves passing along what we’ve
learned to our clients and the community. Learning is great for us as individuals, but
because we are interested in seeing real change in the way the real estate industry does
things, outreach is critical—so critical that, although we don’t really view it as market-
ing, it certainly functions that way.
It is not uncommon for agents and brokers of a traditional brokerage to participate
in professional associations and industry conferences. Agents and brokers of a sus-
tainable brokerage participate in professional associations and industry conferences
too, but there is a difference. Instead of participating primarily to network, we also
participate for the sake of outreach and discussion with our colleagues. We give pre-
sentations to groups such as appraisers about the value of sustainability; we chair
sustainability task forces in city government and the local economic development
authority. not because we need more lines to put on our résumés but because we want
our colleagues and the community to think about development differently.
John Grant, in his groundbreaking work, The Green Marketing Manifesto, makes
the point that as companies move from green to greener to greenest, they focus
part of their marketing effort on the social level. (The two other tiers are the personal
level and the corporate level.) The social component of moving up the green spec-
trum involves first fostering credible partners, then creating tribal loyalty around a
brand, and then creating a paradigm-shifting product or service that gains credibil-
ity in the market by being normal. 17 (Grant’s schema is discussed in greater detail in
Chapter 10.)
Sustainable brokerage plays a particularly important role in the social level of mar-
keting. Given the nature of the work, brokerage is a natural point from which to bring
together credible partners. If nothing else, brokers foster connections between par-
ties. Fostering partnering where there is strong philosophical alignment along sus-
tainable lines is something at which a sustainable brokerage group should be adept.
Since these partnerships have strong potential to extend over multiple deals over
many years (that’s why brokers always want to be “protected” by getting residual
commissions in future deals, since they were responsible for cobbling together the
initial partnership), a quasi-tribal bond between parties often evolves. As we have