Recession has brought a ‘green’ development decline, survey finds

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So-called green real estate development--almost an industry cliche during boom times--has stalled during the recession and will not pick up for some time after a recovery, a new survey [.pdf] says.

The Newport Beach real estate advisory firm The Concord Group surveyed commercial real estate professionals on the status of sustainable projects. Developers, architects and others said that their motivations for beginning green projects had also changed: it’s nice to save the planet, but these days, it’s mostly about the money.

Key points:

• Resistance from investors and lenders will stall private developers’ ground-up green projects through the recession and into a following recovery.
• The economic downturn has caused environmental benefits to take a back seat to financial gains.
• With private developers on the sidelines, it will fall to the public sector to champion and build sustainable projects.

The survey was conducted between May and June 2009, with a total of 101 respondents, 45% of them from development firms, 25% from architecture and planning, 16% from investment and lending groups and 7% from consulting and law firms and another 7% coming from construction.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles