Local Market Factors Determine Traction of Green Buildings

The Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute shows the understanding of green building initiatives growing. Are your customers interested?

Lauren Spiers Hunter

Published January 03, 2006

The Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute (CRDMI) has recently released the results of a survey showing increasing evidence that local market factors are decisive in determining how much traction green building initiatives truly have. While there is a variance in the understanding and acceptance of green buildings throughout the United States, there has been an upswing in the overall average response to the benchmark survey question, "How well are green building issues understood by your organization?"

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This assessment from CRDMI was was based on a survey of registrants to its popular educational seminar series Turning Green Into Gold™. These seminars were presented in 17 markets across the United States during 2005. Architects, engineers, designers, facilities managers, building owners, developers and contractors attended these seminars to learn how to design, build and operate high-performance and sustainable buildings.

Overall, 35 percent of those responding said that "green building issues are well understood and are a corporate objective." However, there’s a wide disparity between markets. Los Angeles was at the top of the list with 56 percent of respondents noting green building issues as a corporate objective, while the Chicago suburbs ranked at the bottom at 5 percent. It’s significant to note that the 20-mile drive from the Chicago suburbs to downtown reveals a different attitude – 41 percent of downtown respondents said green issues were well understood and a corporate objective.

Responses from each of the 17 markets surveyed are shared in the table below. Overall this year, 35 percent of respondents said that "green building issues are well understood and are a corporate objective" which compares to only 11 percent in 2002 when the Institute conducted the research project "Measuring the Success of Green."

This is good news for green industry companies who can tout the economic benefits of landscapes when approaching customers that have green building initiatives in mind. According to a Lawn & Landscape Online Poll that’s currently in progress, 29 percent of contractors say their residential customers are interested in landscaping benefits like boosting home value and lower air conditioning bills. Fourteen percent say those benefits interest their commercial clients. So far, only 7 percent of respondents have said they themselves are unfamiliar with these benefits. Visit www.lawnandlandscape.com/poll to add your insight to the poll through Dec. 25.

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    Green building initiatives benchmark question: "How well are green building issues understood by your organization?"

    Rank Metro Area Not at All Somewhat Well Understood
    But is not a
    Corporate Objective    		 Well Understood
    And is a
    Corporate Objective
    1 Los Angeles 3% 38% 3% 56%
    2 Seattle 3% 39% 6% 53%
    3 Washington, D.C. 7% 41% 3% 48%
    4 Phoenix 7% 39% 7% 46%
    5 Boston 4% 33% 19% 44%
    6 Charlotte 7% 36% 14% 43%
    6 Minneapolis 0% 43% 13% 43%
    8 Chicago 0% 56% 4% 41%
    9 Denver 8% 31% 23% 38%
    10 San Diego 7% 33% 33% 25%
    11 Raleigh 8% 47% 25% 19%
    11 Philadelphia 3% 59% 19% 19%
    11 Columbus 5% 57% 19% 19%
    11 Atlanta 10% 57% 14% 19%
    15 San Francisco 5% 63% 16% 16%
    16 Indianapolis 7% 53% 27% 13%
    17 Chicago Subs 11% 58% 16% 5%
    -- 2005 Average 5% 46% 14% 35%
    -- 2002 Average 14% 49% 26% 11%

"While the progress is encouraging, it’s clear that more education about the advantages of high-performance  and sustainable buildings is needed,” says Alan Whitson, lead presenter in the Turning Green into Gold programs and president of Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute. "In some markets it's looks like a lot more education will be needed."

The research shows that “somewhat,” is still most frequent answer to the benchmark question; at least 30 percent of respondents in every market responded “somewhat” with the national average sitting at 46 percent. This compares to 49 percent In the 2002 survey. Seven out of the 17 markets were above 50 percent on “somewhat.”

A market about to reach the tipping point is San Diego, which has some of the highest energy costs in the nation. One-quarter of seminar attendees in San Diego said green building issues were well understood and a corporate objective. A third of the attendees said; "green building issues were well understood, but not a corporate objective." Another third answered "somewhat." Only 7 percent said "not at all"

A sign of how much progress has been made is that respondents answering "not at all" dropped to 5 percent among 2005 seminar attendees compared to 14 percent from the 2002 survey. Half the markets surveyed in 2005 were at 5 percent or lower in the "not at all" category. The Chicago suburbs were the highest at 11 percent.

Since 1996 Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute, based in Portland, Ore., has presented more than 300 educational programs on high performance buildings and the sustainable workplace in 50 markets across North America. More than 11,000 architects, engineers, designers, facilities managers, building owners, developers, and contractors who were responsible for 700 million square feet of projects have attended these programs. In addition to educational programs, the institute provides research and consulting services. For more information, visit www.squarefootage.net

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