Towards Sustainable Property Markets - breaking the vicious cirlce of blame
From Monday 28 January to Friday 1 February, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and Transport organised the second EU Sustainable Energy Week. RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), a recognised partner and media associate of the EU Sustainable Energy Campaign, played an active role throughout the week.
| During the entire week, RICS had a stand explaing the critical role Chartered Surveyors play in creating a sustainable built environment |
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On Wednesday 30 January RICS organised a conference titled “Investing in a Sustainable Built Environment, do energy efficient buildings make economic sense?”, highlighting essential key drivers for the mainstreaming of sustainable property investment and explained how to turn the so-called “vicious circle of blame” into virtuous circles of market feedback and adaptation. |
The RICS press release and the presentations made by the speakers are available for download on the right-hand side of the screen.
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In his speech, Louis Armstrong, RICS chief executive underlined:
"Important steps towards greater acceptance of sustainable buildings in the marketplace need to be taken. This needs to be encouraged by all policy makers, businesses, property professionals and consumers.
"Our conference provides an opportunity for us to share the experiences of our members, who work at all levels of a building’s lifecycle, including construction, refurbishment, facilities management and valuation.
| "Although RICS members can provide practical recommendations and professional training to achieve efficient use of energy in the built environment, property professionals cannot act in isolation. |
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"Financial incentives, political leadership and a broad communication campaign across Europe at all levels need to be further developed if we are to achieve real impact.
"We already have the knowledge and the experience and also political and social pressure, but what is missing is market evidence (valuation and assessment tools that green buildings actually do achieve a greater value) as well as market participant’s awareness and demand."
According to David Lorenz, Member of RICS in Germany:
"Buildings and construction works have the largest single share in global resource use and pollution emission. Thus, the contribution of buildings and of the property and construction sector to sustainable development could be immense.
"Sustainable buildings squeeze the maximum utility for owners, users and the wider public out of the lowest possible use of land and throughput of energy and raw materials.
"These buildings are not more expensive to build from the outset than conventional ones but their ownership results in various benefits for investors, ranging from drastically lower operating costs to improved marketability, longer useful life-spans, significantly increased occupant productivity and well-being as well as more stable cash-flows which in turn have economically quantifiable benefits.
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"As a result, increasing economic return, sustaining the natural environment and protecting social values are not incompatible; at least not within property and construction markets." |
RICS EU Public Affairs team at the conference
