Perhaps lagging their European brethren and some sectors in the US real estate scene, Asian institutional property investors increasingly are eying green measures and throwing around acronyms such as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), ESG (Environmental Social Governance) and GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark).

The new alphabet soup spells big news. The green movement in Asia arguably carries even more import than those in Europe or North America; Asia is developing economically, building much more new product, dwarfs the developed world in population, and some Asian property developers are perhaps more powerful — politically and economically — than those in the West. If green prevails in the developing Asia mainland, it may be because it has won acceptance in the corporate suite, more than at sometimes ineffectual city halls or national government offices.

In those corporate suites, there appears to be growing consensus that sustainable or gre