Abstract
The goal of the paper is to evaluate the impact of selected factors on the adoption of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building certification in Europe. In the empirical part of the paper we track the fraction of LEED-registered office space in selected European cities, and assess the impact of selected socioeconomic and environmental factors on the certification adoption rate. This research contributes to the ongoing debate about the adoption of green buildings in commercial property markets. In this paper, we investigate factors affecting the adoption of LEED certification using the Arellano and Bond generalized method-of-moments estimator. Compared to prior studies, which relied on cross-sectional data, our research uses a panel approach to investigate the changes in green building adoption rates in selected European cities. Among the cities that are quickly adopting LEED are Frankfurt, Warsaw, Stockholm, and Dublin. The adoption process was not equally fast in Brussels and Copenhagen. Using the dynamic panel model approach, we found that the adoption of green building certification is linked to overall innovativeness in the economy and the perceived greenness of the city. Contrary to some previous studies we did not observe links between the size of the office market and the LEED adoption rate.
Highlights
Green buildings are the industry’s answer to the requirement of sustainable development [1] which is one of the most important challenges of the contemporary economy [2]
The diffusion of green technologies and the adoption of green building certifications may be driven by environmental policies or regulations, climate and weather conditions, or salient socioeconomic conditions that vary between locations and change over time
Using empirical data on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification scheme in the European office market context we found that citizens’ level of satisfaction with green spaces, used as a proxy for overall city greenness, was positively linked with the green building adoption indicator
Summary
Green buildings ( known as sustainable buildings, energy-efficient buildings, eco-buildings, or passive buildings) are the industry’s answer to the requirement of sustainable development [1] which is one of the most important challenges of the contemporary economy [2]. It is necessary to mention the creation and development of green building associations, supporting the creation and adaptation of multi-criteria assessment systems for the built environment in the context of compliance with the principles of sustainable development. It is worth mentioning that on the one hand, the number of certificates is growing and the numbers of buildings certified worldwide have exponentially increased from just a few at the end of the 20th century to many thousands today [11]. This second aspect, related to the worldwide spread of green buildings, was the starting point of our empirical study. The time dimension is a delimiter of adapters’ classes, distinguished by their innovativeness degree—innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards [25]
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