ESG consensus more effective than hard-to-police green lease

Buildings that have been designed and constructed to high standards of sustainability only achieve their full potential if they are used correctly and as long as sustainability is ingrained in tenant behaviour.

“Green leases” have been one means to attempt to achieve this. Both the owner and occupier agree to particular responsibilities and obligations which are designed to minimise environmental impact of the building.

But policing such leases can be difficult. “Green leases were always a bit problematic for me,” said Jan van den Hogen, head of tenant relationship management, logistics, at Deka Immobilien.

“What is a green lease? Let’s say if you commit yourself to do something very sustainable but don’t do it, nothing happens in the lease,” van den Hogen said.

“What we do with a lot of the big clients, at least in the logistics and industrial sector, is that we make a kind of covenant with the tenant but for the whole company, so it is not object oriented but company oriented.”

He explained that larger companies worldwide understand why it is important to scrutinize every in order to achieve their ESG goals.

“Green leases are a thing, but it makes much more sense to really try to communicate with the tenant, and then not on an object-driven level but really on a company level.”

Click on the video to watch the full interview or listen to the podcast below.