Sustainability remains on agenda, says RICS

The attempt to raise profitability remains the key factor driving the interest in sustainable buildings globally, according to the latest Global Property Sustainability Survey, released by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Overall the majority of surveyors believe their clients place a level of importance on sustainability issues, with only 7% of respondents seeing it as not important. Germany, Brazil and China place the greatest importance on sustainability; however, it is respondents in the US, which were the least positive, with 13% of respondents seeing environmental issues as not important at all, whilst only 9% saw it as very important.

Russia, the UAE, India and Spain were the only other countries where a percentage of surveyors felt that sustainability was not important to their clients, however in these instances the negative responses were outweighed by those placing greater importance on the issues.

Overall it is profitability that is driving the push towards more sustainable buildings with 38% of respondents globally citing this. Client preferences for this kind of unconventional property are starting to weight more and more. Client demand has now become a more important driver to promote sustainability within firms than legal compliance, RICS said.

'Considering the depth of the current downturn it is encouraging to see that so many countries are still placing a level of importance on sustainability,' said Ursula Hartenberger, RICS' global head of Sustainability Policy. 'The fact that this is being driven by clients wanting to improve their bottom line shows that the economic argument for energy efficiency and green buildings may be growing in strength.'