With demand for sustainable real estate cooling in most regions, more help is needed to prove that the current cost of making properties “greener” is worth the expenditure.
A report released in November 2025 by The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed many green projects are stalling due to high upfront costs and uncertain payback, while globally, there is a growing number of construction companies who do not measure carbon emissions on their projects. The RICS 2025 Sustainability Report shows demand for sustainable buildings dropping from 41 percent to 30 percent globally, with investors and developers mostly blaming unclear returns for their decisions to scale back renovations.
Across regions, roughly half of respondents to a RICS survey the report is based on, say they do not measure embodied carbon at all, and only 16 percent say their assessments change design choices. Just 17 percent believe the industry has enough sustainability knowledge,
