It’s amazing what a decade can do to a concept. Ten years ago, to many an owner, developer and especially the tenant, LEED was what you called the building’s anchor lease, green meant the cash they were paying and sustainability was what that cash was doing to your bottom line.

Just five years ago, these terms invoked the same fear as a group of office workers trying to decide who would be the first to try walking across hot coals. Being “green” was respected, but only because it was the courageous company that risked a 5% to 10% increase in costs to implement these energy-efficient building designs.

Today, sustainability is a common phrase – dropping it indicates your company keeps up with current trends and is a trusted steward of Mother Earth – both valuable to display as a tenant to clients and for owners to use as a bargaining chip for a future sale.

David Graff, SVP of project services for MB Real Estate, tells GlobeSt.com that he’s proud of how the commercial real estate industry has embraced sustainable design. He’s currently handling a number of these projects, such as at the new office headquarters for United Methodist Church’s General Board of Pension and Health Benefits, a 110,000-square-foot owner-occupied building, and a new 440,000-square-foot building for Astellas Pharma, both in Glenview, IL.

Here, he talks about a few current green trends.

GlobeSt.com: What are tenants looking for when they ask for a LEED-certified building today?

Graff: What we see is a focus on items that you can see and touch, and items that provide economic payback. Most clients want that designation, that trophy, they want something they can talk about. If they want a green roof, they want other people to be able to see it. At the Astellas building, we’re doing a geothermal system, and we’re setting up a kiosk in the lobby to show how much of the building is being run naturally. Tenants want to take credit for demonstrating that they are in tune with the whole sustainability drive, to say they are socially correct.

GlobeSt.com: What about the owners and developers, how are they impacted?

Graff: The owners and developers want to see that payback. They want to see that they are going to spend “x” dollars on a LEED certification, and also what they are going to get for it.

And these days, that’s a lot easier to do, because we’ve gotten used to doing it. For example, with this geothermal project, we can figure out how much it’s going to cost, this is our projected reduction in energy and projected savings, and we can run that projection at different levels, conservative or aggressive. You can decide to spend an extra 4% on a rooftop unit, but know it’s a six-year payback, on a 10-year building ownership horizon. The data out there is now a lot more accurate.

Also, it’s gotten less expensive. The contractors have had more experience with LEED, they’ve gotten better at it and more efficient, and are able to lower their costs. This savings is getting passed on to the owners. If you’ve got three contractors competing for a bid, part of the pitch from contractors may be that they’ve done 20 or 30 of those, and where in the past the green portion was a 6% to 7% percent premium, their end is only going to be 1% to 2% premium.

And don’t forget the consultant side, the soft costs of having a LEED consultant or specialized architect. Even that has gotten more competitive, more people do it, thus there’s more competition. When soft costs are typically 20% of a project, that savings can add up if done right.

GlobeSt.com: With so many companies used to LEED, and the many different designations there are now, some say that the designation is getting diluted in meaning. What do you think?

Graff: When this first got hot, buildings were using the status to distinguish themselves. Now that it’s becoming more mainstream and easier to do, we’re going to reach a point where you’re going to say to an owner, “You’re not LEED certified?” and you’re not going to buy that building. We’ve had some of our clients say that. The pension board had second thoughts about its sustainable commitment, until the broker pointed out that 10 years from now, what if it’s the only non-LEED building for sale? Is someone going to want it?

Does it get diluted? Sure, but that’s a good thing. It should be that everyone doing it. The next generation of developers are not going to know any different. My daughter just had an environmental class in school. It’s the whole point of doing it, to spread it to every building, and I think that’s wonderful.

GlobeSt.com: Do you see any negative issues with green building today?

Graff: Well, there’s a couple things that could be improved. It’s somewhat alarming when various communities start to enact their own, different standards, or point systems. Then developers have to follow different systems, and it makes it harder. We need to work toward unifying the system, not making it more difficult.

And the point system (such as the process adopted by the City of Chicago)…sometimes it seems to make the developer focus on what will get them the best points, not what’s best for that particular building. It may get them what they want, but it is worth it to the project?

Finally, all industries need to be aware of how these new products are working in buildings. For example, we’ve switched to water-based adhesives for carpets, instead of petroleum-based, for better air quality. However, you have to spend almost as much as the carpet just to mitigate the floor because of the higher moisture content. The carpet industry needs to address this problem.