Value Beyond Cost Savings - Green Building Finance Consortium

Value Beyond Cost Savings: How to Underwrite Sustainable PropertiesFinally, there are a growing number of organizations that identify, assess, and certifyservice providers such as contractors, plumbers, electricians, commissioning agents, andother professions on their sustainability expertise. The credibility and rigor involved withthese different groups is highly variable. The key here is to understand explicitly therequirements for certification and/or listing in the directory and use the list accordingly.Even if a list requires no special requirements other than interest in sustainability, it couldbe useful.It should also be noted that, given the penetration of sustainability through every aspect ofbuilding design, construction and operations, sustainability training is now integrated intothe general education requirement for many professional certifications.Two interesting developments in the certification and assessment of sustainable servicecompanies are the B-Corporation (http://www.bcorporation.net/why) and the SustainablePerformance Institute’s (SPI) Green Firm Certification. Both these efforts aim atenhancing the independence and credibility of firm claims of sustainable operatingpractice and/or competence. 86In this section of Expanded Chapter VI we provide a more detailed presentation of the B-Corporation and SPI Green Firm Certification and discuss and what decision-makersshould look for in selecting three key sustainable properties service providers:• Design Team• Contractor• Asset ManagerE. Underwriting Energy/Carbon Reduction Investment1. IntroductionEnergy/carbon reduction is a critical driver of sustainable property value. Energy hasbecome more central to achieving and maintaining environmental certifications andmeeting corporate and regulator minimum occupancy standards. Accordingly, it is a keycontributor to property value beyond energy cost savings. In this section, we summarizesome of the key issues in underwriting energy/carbon reduction investment from a capitalprovider perspective. More detail is provided in this section of Expanded Chapter VI.Given the increasing attention being paid to climate change and the role of greenhousegasses in that change, public and private decision-makers are becoming increasinglyconcerned with carbon efficiency. Since the analysis and methodologies addressed in this86 The author has not done a detailed assessment of the claims and assertions of these two entities and their programs,but cites them as two interesting and credible efforts to address the issues involved in conducting due diligence onservice providers.161