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What's Happening from Environmental Building News

August 1, 2008

Jones Lang LaSalle Gives Green Globes a Boost

Property management and real estate investment firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) acquired ECD Energy and Environment Canada in July 2008. Toronto-based ECD was responsible for launching Green Globes, a program that aims to compete with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System (see EBN Vol. 14, No. 3). The acquisition will not affect administration of Green Globes because the rating system is controlled by other organizations—by the Green Building Initiative in the U.S. and by the Building Owners and Managers Association–Canada (BOMA Canada) in that country.

JLL bought ECD primarily to enhance the services it can offer building owners, according to Dan Probst, JLL’s chairman of energy and sustainability services. “A lot of prospective tenants in the market want to include sustainability criteria in their search for leased space. Tools like this can help with that need for assessment,” he said. To serve that need, JLL has acquired similar capabilities in the U.K. and Australia.

Ironically, JLL has not used Green Globes yet. It plans to use the system soon, however, both for existing buildings and for entire real estate portfolios in the U.S. and Canada, according to Probst. Whether it will use the tool just for internal assessments or through third-party certification will depend on the owner’s needs and interests for each project. “Corporate clients who own and occupy their real estate may not care as much about a certified score,” Probst explained, adding that “investors looking for tenants may have more desire for a certification process.” Probst also expects to continue seeking LEED certification, especially for new construction and tenant fit-out, but also for some existing facilities where LEED’s brand is important. “There is room for both,” he says, noting that some clients cite LEED in their requests for proposals for leased space. “LEED is gaining some currency. We’re not seeing Green Globes at that level in the marketplace.”

Through ECD, JLL has acquired contracts to provide technical support for the ongoing use and evolution of Green Globes. JLL is interested in building on Green Globes internationally, in markets without established rating systems, and hopes to better support specific real estate markets, such as retail and light manufacturing, in the U.S. and Canada. Both in North America and elsewhere, JLL wants to partner with organizations to develop Green Globes as an open standard, but the company will also build internal property-assessment tools based on the Green Globes framework and expertise where that makes sense, Probst says.

– Nadav Malin

For more information:

Craig Bloomfield, VP Public Relations
Jones Lang LaSalle
Chicago, Illinois
312-228-2774
www.joneslanglasalle.com

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