BOULDER, CO—The commercial real estate industry's approach to mitigating the impacts of climate change on the built environment will continue to get even more aggressive over the next two decades, according to research from locally based firm Navigant. The firm just put out a report that defines and analyzes the global market for zero-energy buildings—including global market forecasts for revenue, broken out by region, product/service and development type—through 2035 and found that worldwide revenue from ZEBs is expected to total nearly $4.6 trillion from 2014 through 2035.

On a global scale, commercial and residential buildings account for 35% to 40% of total energy consumption, Navigant reports. While advances in energy-efficient buildings are reducing the energy consumption of many new and existing structures, the spread of ZEBs, which generate as much energy over the course of a year as they use, is a primary indicator of aggressive approaches to mitigating the impacts of climate change in the built environment.

According to Noah Goldstein, research director with Navigant, “Governments, corporations and home-builders are pursuing ZEB solutions in order to reduce energy costs and minimize the carbon footprint of their buildings. A number of large-scale and interesting showcase developments are paving the way for the widespread adoption of ZEBs in a few innovative regions around the world.”

Regulation appears to be the strongest driver for this market, according to Navigant's report. Policies like the European Union's Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and California's evolving Title 24 building code have been introduced in many countries to create an emerging market that integrates highly energy-efficient building technologies with renewable power. In some markets—particularly residential buildings in the EU—ZEBs are expected to be developed by current green-building and conventional builders and suppliers as they shift their offerings to confirm to the new code requirements.

LEED-Certified buildings are fetching high prices all over the Western market. As GlobeSt.com reported last week, Vulcan Real Estate has sold Alcyone Apartments, an eight-story building featuring 161 apartment homes in Seattle's South Lake Union submarket, to Chicago-based Equity Residential for what GlobeSt.com learned is $61 million. Developed in 2004, the property was the first LEED-certified, market-rate multifamily building in Washington State.