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Adaptive re‐use enables a building to suit new conditions. It is a process that reaps the benefit of the embodied energy and quality of the original building in a sustainable manner. Initiatives to improve the sustainability of buildings have tended to focus on new construction projects rather than existing ones. One reason is the tendency to regard old buildings as products with a limited useful life that have to be eventually discarded and demolished. Much of the existing building stock will still be in use for another 100 years. Thus, there is a need to develop policy and strategies that encourage adaptive re‐use and the ongoing sustainability of building stock. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the factors influencing the decision to adopt an adaptive re‐use strategy.

Adaptive re‐use is beginning to receive attention, yet there is a lack of consensus as to whether it is an appropriate strategy for meeting the changing needs and demands of developers, occupiers and owners for existing building stock. Considering the limited published research on adaptive re‐use in buildings, particularly in the context of sustainability, a comprehensive review of the normative literature is undertaken to determine the factors influencing the decision‐making process for its use.

It is revealed that the major drivers for adaptive focus on lifecycle issues, changing perceptions of buildings, and governmental incentives. The barriers to re‐use, on the other hand, include a perception of increased maintenance costs, building regulations, inertia of development criteria and the inherent risk and uncertainty associated with older building stock. The identification of drivers and barriers has enabled a balanced view of the adaptive re‐use debate to be presented.

The paper concludes that more empirical research is required to examine the role of adaptive re‐use in the context of its contribution to sustainability if it is to become an effective strategy that drives the formulation of public policy for addressing the issues associated with existing building stock.

The research identifies key adaptive re‐use issues that need to be addressed by policy makers, developers and owners during the formative stages of the design process so that efforts toward sustainability can be ameliorated. Addressing a building's adaptive re‐use will significantly reduce whole life costs, waste and lead to the improved building functionality.

This paper provides policy makers and key decision makers with the underlying factors that need to be considered when implementing an adaptive re‐use policy as part of their sustainability strategy.

In Sri Lanka, a limited number of buildings have been certified for incorporation of green features and the reasons are attributed to green building investors who continue to perceive that green buildings are expensive. Further, the green building investors fail to appreciate the subsequent benefits received by those buildings during the operational phase. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to compare the life cycle cost (LCC) of green certified industrial manufacturing buildings with a similar form of the conventional buildings to establish the economic sustainability of green buildings.

The study involved a comparative case study analysis of two green buildings and a similar natured conventional building. The data required to perform the LCC analysis were extracted through documentary analysis.

The comparative analysis shows that the construction cost of a green industrial manufacturing building is 37 per cent higher than that of a similar natured conventional building while operation, maintenance and the end life cost of green buildings result in 28, 22 and 11 per cent savings, respectively. This results in an overall cost saving of 21 per cent in green buildings.

The current study provides an assessment of the total LCC of green industrial manufacturing buildings. In Sri Lanka, green industrial manufacturing buildings offer LCC saving of 21 per cent over its lifetime compared to similar natured conventional buildings. Thus, comparative analyses would enable green investors to make informed decisions before commissioning their investment in green facilities and thereby promote sustainable construction in Sri Lanka.

Sustainable building design suffers from a lack of reliable life cycle data. The purpose of this paper is to compare life cycle costs of sustainable building projects, examine the magnitude of various cost drivers and discuss the implications of an emerging shift in cost drivers.

This paper is based on data from 21 office buildings certified in Denmark according to the sustainable certification scheme DGNB.

The paper supports previous findings that construction costs and running costs each roughly make up half of the life cycle costs over a 50-year period. More surprising is the finding that the life cycle costs for cleaning are approximately twice as high as the supply costs for energy and water.

The data set is based on actual construction costs of office buildings constructed in 2013-2017. Although all running costs are calculated rather than measured, they are based on a more detailed, specific and industry-supported set of calculation assumptions than is usual for life cycle costing studies because of extensive collaborative work in a number of concomitant national research and development projects.

Authorities, clients and building professionals heavily emphasise energy-saving measures in new Danish buildings. The paper suggests redirecting this effort towards other more prominent cost drivers like cleaning and technical installations.

This paper provides a notable contribution to the academic understanding of the significance of different cost drivers as well as the practical implementation of life cycle costing.

The purpose of this paper is to address the apparent slow acceptance on the part of developers located in the USA to seek green certifications. If green-certified construction costs more than non-green construction, then is there a financial reason for not seeking a green rating. Do green buildings perform better than non-green buildings financially? The paper develops and presents a discounted present value model for doing a cost-benefit analysis for building green. This model enables an investor to determine the feasibility of constructing a new green-certified building instead of a conventional non-green building. Non-green buildings are not certified by a rating agency such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Energy Star or Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). Real estate permits are granted by local municipalities in the USA. This means that local government mandates requiring green construction that significantly adds to the initial cost of a project could have the unintended result of encouraging new non-green construction just outside their municipal boundaries.

The paper collects publically available research data for office buildings located in the USA, and inputs this information into an income statement. It tests the hypothesis: is green-certified construction a financially feasible choice for an investor? An incremental approach using a 15-year holding period is presented. This time period takes into account equipment wear and tear. Heating/cooling systems and other green-technologically based operating systems have a limited life and do not last for 30 or 40 years. They are likely to need replacement after 15 years have lapsed.

The negative net present value (NPV) results and high payback periods indicate that increased rents for green construction, a tax credit for the present value loss and/or property-tax reduction covering the shortfall is needed as an incentive to commercially build green. The implication of a negative NPV is that green office buildings will be built by government agencies where green is mandated, corporations that want a green image and benefit from this image, where local ordinances mandate green construction features and where local and federal tax incentives are available increasing a construction project's feasibility.

The limitation of any cost-benefit study is that analytical models and/or data used to forecast energy and water consumption savings in green-certified buildings compared to conventional buildings can be inaccurate. Forecasting models can understate or overstate the actual savings realized from green construction especially in the long-term given the difficulty of predicting equipment wear and tear, net rents and energy costs. The modeled percentage cost associated with green new construction features could remain constant or grow through time. Tables I and II results assume energy and water expenses remain a constant percentage over the 15-year period. The agency costs associated with obtaining a LEED or BREEAM certification was not calculated as an upfront cost. Certification by LEED or BREEAM increases the upfront cost associated with building a green building.

The length of the payback period estimates coupled with negative NPV for green certified compared to non-green construction suggests that developers do not have an incentive to build green. Higher WACC rates would result in green-certified projects being less feasible to build.

The LEED certification point system may need to be reviewed. Points are assigned for features that improve occupant satisfaction, but may have little impact on reducing energy usage.

A model is presented for determining whether green-certified construction is financially feasible. The model enables the investor to determine the size of a tax incentive that is needed to enable new green construction to be economically feasible to build. The higher the negative NPV the larger the income or property tax incentive or other financial incentives needed. Prior research studies compared green and non-green buildings, but did not compare the energy savings generated to the additional construction and upfront costs incurred using a discount rate. They assumed the energy savings justified the additional initial cost associated with building a new green certified.

The paper has the following objectives in mind: to examine whether or not “green” developments have any significant effect on the Real Estate Investment Trust's (REIT) operational and financial performance; to examine whether or not the effects of “green” developments on the REIT's performance is consistent across the different property types namely office, retail and residential.

The paper introduces two variables to measure “greenness” of REIT's. These variables include the percentage of square feet of certified properties and the average “greenness” score. Firm's size as measured by taking natural logarithm of total assets was also included as it serves as an indirect measurement of “greenness”. Other financial variables were added to control for the differences in firm's characteristics. This is meant to isolate the variation in performance variable that could be explained by the “green” variables. Following which, regressions (OLS) were estimated for each of the performance variables as measured by ROA, FFO/total revenue and ROE.

The general findings of this paper are: “Green” buildings do impact both the operational and financial performance of REITs. However, different measures of “greenness” of REIT's property portfolio will yield different set of results; the observed impacts of “green” buildings are mainly significant for both the K‐REIT and Capitamall Trust (CMT) whereas that for City Developments Limited (CDL) are insignificant; the observed effects vary across the different property types namely office, retail and residential as represented by K‐REIT, CMT and CDL. The paper provides evidence to show that “green” buildings are better options given the various benefits, as compared to their counterparts.

The findings of this paper should serve as a meaningful guide to look at how investments in “green” and sustainable buildings will create value for real estate investors at the REIT's level.

The paper offers insightful information for REIT's managers when they make decisions on the acquisition of “green” properties or retrofitting of the existing properties in their direct real estate portfolios. As such, this paper is meant to extend the body of literature on “green” buildings by investigating the significance of “green” buildings on REIT's performance.

Sustainable construction (SC) is a vital requirement to safeguard the world for future generations. However, there are several potential barriers such as initial costs of implementation of sustainability concepts (approaches used to safeguard three dimensions of sustainability, namely environmental, social and economical). The purpose of this paper is to integrate sustainability concepts to value planning (VP) which attracts clients as it is used to reduce unnecessary costs.

A comprehensive literature survey was carried out to develop a conceptual linkage between SC and VP disciplines. This was followed by a questionnaire survey with 40 respondents and 16 semi-structured expert interviews to ascertain prevailing status of these concepts in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Data were analyzed using statistical and content analysis, respectively.

Findings revealed even though knowledge is fairly good, application and experience of experts are not satisfactory regarding these concepts. However, it is established that there is a huge requirement to apply these concepts in local construction projects. In order to overcome barriers identified, a framework has been developed to integrate sustainability concepts and VP disciplines in construction projects.

The framework can be used as a guide by construction industry practitioners for betterment of construction projects, ultimately steering the industry toward sustainability.

As the green economic bottom line is a strong motivating force when deciding to build, manage and/or operate green, this study aims to examine the financial impacts of green certifications on multifamily rental communities.

Using a multiple regression methodology, operating financial variables are examined.

Multifamily rental green buildings garner not only higher rental collections but also higher total expenses. When applying these higher rates to properties, the overall increase in rents outweighs the increases in total expenses.

While multiple studies have focused on the office sector, this study begins to fill the literature gap within the multifamily rental sector regarding the economic impacts of green-certified buildings. The outcomes of this study have positive implications for the multifamily real estate industry by providing developers, owners, managers and related parties with a better understanding of the financial impacts of multifamily rental green buildings; however, more research is needed.

In the increasingly hostile operating environment, corporate real estate (CRE) executives are beginning to recognise the importance of sustainability within their freehold property portfolios. To assist in decision‐making, external valuations are regularly commissioned. The purpose of this paper is to examine the practical difficulties associated with incorporating sustainability criteria in the valuation methodology as valuation outcomes inform CRE decision‐making at strategic and tactical levels.

This paper takes the form of a detailed and critical literature review.

It is widely acknowledged that sustainability has become a key driver of many business decisions. Corporate entities can achieve a considerable range of tangible and intangible benefits from sustainable real estate in their freehold portfolios. While substantial progress has been made toward understanding the dynamics of the sustainable real estate market, the valuation of such assets is rather hampered by the comparative difficulties in achieving consensus regarding the sustainable criteria and how they should be objectively assessed.

The paper contributes to the broader appreciation of the theoretical and practical difficulties associated with identifying and assessing appropriate sustainable criteria. Importantly, the paper highlights the need for greater understanding of the criteria in the evolving valuation methodology framework.