A new report published by the Urban Land Institute’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance suggests that the global real estate industry continues to make progress in improving the environmental performance of existing buildings.
Volume 4 of the Greenprint Performance Report™, which measures and tracks the performance of 3,232 buildings owned by Greenprint’s members, demonstrates a year-over-year reduction of 3.2 percent in energy consumption and 3.4 percent in carbon emissions.
Among the reports highlights:
- Greenhouse gas emissions decreased 3.4 percent from 2011 to 2012 on a like-for-like portfolio basis. This is equivalent to removing more than 24,000 cars from the road or planting nearly 3 million trees.
- Overall energy consumption of the Greenprint portfolio decreased by 3.2 percent from 2011 to 2012 on a like-for-like portfolio basis. Energy benchmarks are provided by property type and geography, and Volume 4 provides benchmarks based on building age, number of workers, and operating hours for the first time.
- Occupancy has increased 1 percent from 2011 to 2012 on a like-for-like portfolio basis, while energy use and carbon emissions decreased. This suggests best practices, improvements, and other innovations are driving improved environmental performance for Greenprint members.
- Water use increased slightly—0.5 percent from 2011 to 2012 on a like-for-like portfolio basis, while the recycling rate has increased 21.4 percent.
Each year, Greenprint publishes a consolidated view of the portfolio of participating properties, highlighting environmental performance by geography and property type. Greenprint members receive customized reports detailing individual property, fund, and portfolio performance against appropriate benchmarks derived from the consolidated portfolio.
