Green offices: a good investment

Offices with a green energy label can achieve rents that are on average 6.5 per cent higher than those paid for comparable non-green offices, argue <link people maarten-jennen _blank>Dr. Maarten Jennen and his colleague Dr. Nils Kok from Maastricht University. They analysed almost 1,100 recent rental transactions in the Dutch office market.

Alongside a green energy label, office rental prices are also higher if the buildings are located near a railway station. In fact, for every kilometre further away from the closest station, the rent drops 13 per cent. Other facilities in the vicinity of the office also drive up the rent.

The study is the result of a unique collaboration between the Netherlands’ three largest property consultancies CB Richard Ellis, DTZ Zadelhoff and Jones Lang LaSalle; the government agency Agentschap NL; and Erasmus University and Maastricht University. The collaboration between these different parties made it possible to link non-public information about rental transactions to the government’s energy-label database.

The research was prompted by the fact that sustainability is a hot topic within the property sector, which is estimated to account for about 30 per cent of CO² emissions globally. The Dutch government exclusively rents energy-efficient office space; other tenants are increasingly following suit. The resulting demand for green office accommodation is prompting office building owners to think hard about how to make their properties more sustainable. Since improving energy efficiency costs money, investors in office buildings were keen to find out whether green-label office buildings can demand higher rents than non-green ones.

• <link file:507 _blank title="Kok" jennen de waarde van energiezuinigheid en bereikbaarheid: een analyse nederlandse kantorenmarkt>Download the complete report in Dutch (pdf)