Page 310 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

288 CHAPTER 9

and the right to terminate the lease. This could pose new challenges in the financing
arena, as lenders and capital partners will also be required to understand the dynamics
of operating a green building and the obligations being placed on a landlord/borrower
in this context. As well, the landlord may have certain obligations to provide green jan-
itorial services to the building, to offer a recycling program, to upgrade the building’s
electrical, plumbing, or HVAC systems for higher efficiency, or to report data to the ten-
ant regarding the building’s operations and energy efficiency. When a new building is
to be constructed or renovated, the lease may grant the tenant significant rights in deter-
mining the overall design of the building and the engineering of the various systems
within the building. As more tenants begin to specifically seek out green buildings, the
green lease will become a requirement and the provisions of the lease may work to
impose requirements or limitations on both the landlord and the tenant.

Building Operations and

Maintenance

Once a developer has completed a green building, received LEED certification, and
leased the building to tenants, it will still need to ensure that the building actually
operates as intended (and as the developer advertised). In some situations a developer
must ensure that the building continues to operate satisfactorily in order to maintain
LEED certification. The LEED for Existing Buildings program (formerly known as
LEED-EB), for example, requires that a project be re-certified at least every five years.
In order to achieve re-certification, a building owner must provide performance data
for every year following the original certification.
The need for operational issues to be addressed in leases has been discussed above.
Property managers and service providers must also be made aware of the building
owner’s goals for the ongoing operation and maintenance of the project. Contracts
with those parties must ensure that their obligations are performed in a manner con-
sistent with the owner’s goals and that, where applicable, the requirements for main-
taining the project’s certification are fulfilled.

Buying and Selling

Developers (particularly green developers) may have many goals for a project, but one
goal nearly everyone has is to make a profit. Evidence continues to accumulate both
that green buildings are more valuable and that the market has recognized this value
in terms of higher purchase prices. The price spread between green buildings and con-
ventional buildings will only increase as energy prices continue to climb.
Buyers, of course, need to be sure that the value is really there. LEED or some other
certification helps confirm that a building is green, but it will not give a complete pic-