Sustainability in Action at Real Estate Services Firm CB Richard Ellis

As one of the leading global real estate services firms, CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) made an early commitment to the promotion of sustainability in real estate, both in its work with clients and in its own operations.  Reflecting this, the firm released corporate responsibility reports in 2007 and 2008 and declared its goal to be carbon neutral in operations by 2010. CBRE's December newsletter, "6 Degrees of Sustainability", provides a good insight to the kind of activities that CBRE is initiating across the green building spectrum. These include:

• Training of staff in green building practices: CBRE now has 400 LEED Accredited Professionals.
• Sponsoring industry research, such as the recent study by the University of San Diego: "Do Green Buildings Make Dollars and Sense?".
• Publishing their own research papers, such as "Clean Technology: Wind, Solar and Energy from Waste Investments Power Ahead", released earlier this month.
• Developing tools to assist owners and occupiers, such as eTrack, a web-based tool that monitors building energy performance and allows owners to track tasks related to building operations and initiatives such as LEED EB accreditation.

Real estate professional service firms like CBRE have a key role to play in the promotion of green building practices, and we expect to see that role - and their influence - increasing as sustainability becomes mainstream in the commercial real estate industry.