Dr Thomas Beyerle
Deutsche Gesellschaft für ImmobilienfondsAEW (DEGI)
June 2009
Here is one definition of the term “green building”, given in 2007 by Prof Thomas Lützkendorf at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany: “The broad term ‘green building’ today covers many different ideas, as it has evolved from a combination of varying concepts and trends. In German-speaking areas, these concepts were influenced by ecological and biological trends in building and construction and can be circumscribed, among others, with strategies for energy saving, environmentally friendly construction and administration that conform to health standards. Such a building then more than meets the criteria for reducing energy costs and the resulting environmental effects in the utilisation phase: the complete lifecycle will be included.”
Although the first report of the Club of Rome in 1972 had already talked or warned about the limits of economic growth, it was only around the turn of the millennium that national and international climate policies started to make concrete demands on all areas of national economic activity in a way that increasingly affected the real estate economy. The relatively new concept of “green building” – which has taken on an increasing (theoretical) importance due to the higher energy costs that we are now experiencing – has started an intense debate about the technical and economic ways and means of improving energy efficiency and the environmental quality of buildings.
Efforts toward greater sustainability in real estate construction and use are alluded to by a number of market and marketing expressions like green building, sustainable real estate or zero-emission house. Sustainability, a term that originates from forestry, has advanced to a conceptual master plan and carries a strong content of individual interpretations and current events. It is a complex subject that has come to embrace political, social, economic and ecological dimensions.
