Breana Wheeler, BREEAM’s U.S. director of operations, discusses sustainable strategies within the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) market, tracing the transition from a focus on risk mitigation to a value-added approach. Recently, the firm announced BREEAM’s growth across the United States, which saw a nearly 100 percent year-over-year increase in the number of BREEAM certificates issued nationally in 2023.
Can you discuss the evolution of sustainable strategies within the commercial real estate market, particularly the shift from focusing on risk mitigation to a value-added approach?While the commercial real estate market was initially drawn toward sustainability for its marketing edge — emphasizing the premium offered to assets boasting green-building certification — more recently, there’s been a shift to better recognize the direct physical and transitional risks that climate change poses to asset value.
As an increasing frequency of extreme
