A real estate life cycle meta-instrument assessing and enabling sustainable decision-making and management for real estate owners and stakeholders

There is a need for real estate lifecycle instruments to address the new regulations. So far, no instrument includes all sustainability dimensions in all phases of real estate, due to the heterogeneity of the underlying data. In addition, the leverage of the digital transformation in the sustainability transition is yet to be addressed. The aim of this study is how a meta-instrument should be structured to overcome the existing contradictory challenges in sustainability and to enable sustainable decision-making and management for real estate owners. This study examines this question by applying the following methodological approach: 61 literature studies were re-viewed, and concepts and systems were examined, which contain partial solutions at individual levels, be it for sustainability assessment, for the monetarization of sustainability aspects or for the maturity of technical systems. These instruments have their shortcomings as they only map individual aspects, but do not offer a comprehensive life cycle management solution for portfolio holders. Within the framework of this study, a new concept for a tool was developed, allowing to combine the various levels of real estate life cycle, sustainability, and digitalisation in a single holistic model. This multidimensional model was optimised using experts' opinions collected in 2 workshops. The first results reveal the applicability of the developed instrument but remains difficult to manage by potential users. The novelty of the approach comes from considering the entire life cycle, technical and management processes enabled by digitalisation

Focus on skills for a circular built environment in a new curriculum development

Despite the increased research regarding the sustainability transition towards the circular economy (CE) model, the existing literature on adopting and implementing the CE concept reinforcing educational approaches in secondary education seems limited. Considering the current challenges and the critical role of education to empower built environment management students to explore new paths of sustainable development and grow into active citizens, conscious producers, and consumers, this contribution investigates new ways of effective tools for teaching CE and sustainability concepts. The literature review has revealed a research gap regarding the formulation of educational approaches to effectively support CE concepts for higher education students, particularly in Swiss Facility Management education. The paper describes and critically discusses how an introduction of CE to master-level students to the circularity and sustainability perspective, prepare them to build prosperity, and act circularly in the future. A list of skills is presented which can be bundled into one holistic education. This provides valuable information for developing suitable programme in Higher Education which aims at the use and development of competitive methods and solutions for managing existing and new buildings that will contribute to lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the production, use, management, and demolition of architecture in a life-cycle perspective should be based on these skills

Corporate real estate and green buildings : higher education requirements

Purpose: Driven by laws, and regulations, the transformation of the built environment is a herculean task. Green buildings seem to be a megatrend in corporate real estate management, especially for firms headquartered in the region Europe. This contribution aims to explore what the requirements of a respective corporate management fulfilling actual and future applicable laws, regulations, and responsibilities of green buildings are. Furthermore, it is examined to what extent the higher education programs take these requirements into account and what the gaps are. Methods: The study is based on literature review, interviews with professionals, corporate reports, and collected data of academic programs in Europe. Results: Green buildings requires different aspects of corporate management which is not represented by a singular discipline. In Europe, higher education programs focus some of the required content to prepare students for a corporate green building management but integrate rarely all knowledge required throughout a building life cycle. As a result, a framework of an education model is introduced integrating disciplines, and knowledge required of green building management. Conclusion: Only few higher education programs appear to be considering the transdisciplinary context of green buildings requiring knowledge in, amongst others, real estate, workplaces, architecture and engineering, facility management and its services. This contribution provides fundamental considerations and presents a structural framework enabling higher education in green building management

An Analysis of Sustainability in Real Estate in Job Advertisements and Personal Profiles in Switzerland

Organizations in and associated with the real estate sector rely on a competent workforce capable of effectively managing sustainability practices. This study examined the alignment of sustainability-related qualifications between employers and individuals in the Swiss real estate-related job market. A comprehensive analysis was conducted on 600 job advertisements and 1520 personal profiles, employing a keyword-based search approach derived from sustainability definitions and contexts. The findings revealed that companies emphasized the importance of “sustainability” in their job advertisements, whereas employees rarely mentioned it in their profiles. Nevertheless, both employers and workers demonstrate a demand for expertise, competencies, and skills that contribute to fostering sustainability in the real estate domain. Noteworthy keywords encompassed digitalization, green buildings, economic thinking, creativity, and collaboration. To facilitate improved job matching between organizations and applicants and to ensure sustainable practices in the real estate sector, it is recommended that organizations integrate these suggested keywords in their job advertisements and that employees incorporate the corresponding keywords into their profiles. Furthermore, educational institutions can enhance their programs by incorporating these keywords and the proposed dimensions of sustainability into their educational frameworks

Towards a circular built environment – Focus on the new M.Sc. program in real estate and facility management

IntroductionThe sustainability transformation of the built environment is one of the mega tasks of the twenty first century. Real estate professionals who manage sustainability transformation must be acknowledged in all disciplines that reside around the lifecycle of a property. In addition, these managers must have expert knowledge of the megatrend of sustainability and possess the highest level of interpersonal skills to enable society and organizations to manage the associated change.MethodsConsidering the current challenges and the critical role of education to empower real estate (RE) and facility management (FM) students to explore new paths of sustainable development and grow into active citizens, conscious producers, and consumers, this contribution investigates new and elective ways of teaching sustainability concepts, specifically circular economy (CE). To this end, 122 European university degree programs were examined based on a review of all course titles to determine whether the relevant keywords and content for enabling future real estate managers to drive the sustainability transformation toward a circular built environment are present.ResultsThe results show that topics on sustainability are covered significantly. Graduates are empowered in several disciplines that evolve around the real estate lifecycle, but not in all the required ones. There seem to be gaps in teaching especially in the subject area of CE.DiscussionThe extent to which students are also socially empowered is hard to trace. Furthermore, this article describes and critically discusses how the introduction of a holistic approach to the management of real estate for master-level students could help them gain a sustainability perspective and prepare them to act circularly in the future

Corporate real estate and green building : prevalence, transparency and drivers

Purpose: Green building is a megatrend in corporate real estate management. This paper aims to document the prevalence of green building reporting in public firms, assess how well firms apply good practices of green building and show which firms, countries and industry sectors are particularly advanced in the application of green building technologies. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses data on green building reporting, green building scores and firm characteristics of 1,281 publicly traded firms from different industries in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries over a 5-year period. Regression analysis is used to relate the adoption of green building reporting and excellence in green building to firm characteristics. Findings: The results indicate that there is a huge variation in green building activities and reporting in corporate real estate management across countries and industries. The study finds that firms in the financial and health-care sectors are leading in green building reporting. Environmental, social and corporate governance-oriented, profitable and large firms receive the highest green building scores. Research limitations/implications: The results in this paper rely on the reported but not inevitably monitored green building activities. There may also be companies that use green building technologies but do not report on them. The conclusions are largely based on correlations and do not allow for causal statements (endogenous variables). Practical implications: The results in this paper are crucial for practitioners in corporate real estate to benchmark their green building activities and reporting. Additionally, the paper sheds light on how information on green building is propagated in the financial market. Originality/value: The paper looks at the drivers and barriers of green building for 25 countries and across all industry sectors (1,281 firms). In contrast to that most of the existing literature focuses on single countries and limits the analysis to companies in the real estate and construction industry. Additionally, the paper has a joint focus on publicly available green building reporting and green building scores