CBRE Launches LEED Push for 100 Buildings

Pogue explains that the first step in the program is choosing the 100 buildings from the roster of office buildings that CBRE manages. Office buildings constitute about 250 million sf of the 615 million sf in CBRE's US property management portfolio.

"We're already beginning to evaluate buildings to see which ones are relatively close to LEED standards," Pogue says. "We are finding that there is a tremendous interest by a number of clients that we have had preliminary discussions with regarding this."

The Green Building Council's portfolio program is a pilot effort that enables owners to integrate the LEED green building rating system into new and existing buildings in their company's portfolio, and to do so "in a cost effective way without sacrificing the technical rigor and integrity of LEED," CBRE says. Pogue tells GlobeSt.com that the 100-building program at CBRE "will emphasize operating efficiencies before we start looking at any potential capital expenditures."

Pogue adds, "It's certainly likely that some of the buildings will require at least some level of capital expenditures related to mechanical or physical structure, but we are going to try to minimize that as much as we can through working with the systems that are in place." If capital equipment is required, then the building owners can make decisions based upon their capital sources, the length of time they intend to hold the building and other factors.

Pogue is leading the green initiative for all of CBRE's 615-million-sf US property management portfolio. The CBRE partnership program with the Green Building Council entails registering and pursuing LEED EB certification for the 100 office buildings, educating building staffs, vendors and others about commitment to green building and training a minimum of 100 asset service employees for LEED AP accreditation.

The pilot program for the 100 office buildings follows the announcement by CBRE in May that the company plans to be carbon neutral in its own operations by 2010. The LEED program for the 100 office buildings is further evidence of the momentum of the green movement, which is prompting commitments from growing numbers of building owners and managers.

In just one such recent example, Trademark Property Co. of Fort Worth launched an initiative to secure LEED core and shell certification for a $1-billion pipeline of mixed-use space. As reported by GlobeSt.com, the company will pursue the program for existing space including the one-million-sf Padre Staples Mall in Corpus Christi, TX and will go green on all future projects.