Occupiers willing to meet costs for sustainable buildings

65% of occupiers are willing to pay for sustainable buildings and a key barrier to occupying greener buildings is a lack of supply a report has found.

A publication from Upstream, Jones Lang Lasalle's (JLL) research arm, also said that occupiers were aware that building more sustainably cost more. Only 20% expected it to be comparable.

The report, Sustaining Value, published today at Think 08, said that the possibility of a 'new economy' founded on expensive and unreliable energy, constrained mobility and an increased social and environmental context to building, was possible.

"It is even possible that the Holy Grail of 'unending growth' will come into question and that - at least in the West - we will ahve to gte used to a much more stable economy where change takes pladce withtin the confines of real resource limitiation," the report said.

It suggests that current and medium-turn returns on property investment is being driven by total return and income growth as opposed to a compression of yields seen in the period from 2001 to 2006.

The report states that this means that improvement in building performance will be key to providing return on investment and that factors informed by sustainability such as building fabric, cost and quality management and improving demand will all play a part in this.

400 JLL clients in Denver, London, Melbourne and Singapore were surveyed for the report.