Improving the environmental performance of non-domestic
buildings is a complex problem due to the participation of multiple
stakeholders. This is particularly challenging in tenanted
spaces, where landlord and tenant interactions are regulated
through leases that traditionally ignore environmental considerations.
‘Green leasing’ has been conceptualized as a form of
‘middle-out’ inter-organisational environmental governance
that operates between organisations, alongside other drivers.
Green leases form a valuable framework for tenant–landlord
cooperation within properties and across portfolios. This paper
offers a comparative international investigation of how leases
are evolving to become ‘greener’ in Sweden, Australia, and the
UK, drawing on experience from an IEA project on behaviour
change and a UK project on energy strategy development. It
considers how stakeholder retrofit opportunities and interactions
in non-domestic buildings are shaped by the (1) policy
context in each country (e.g., the EPBD, NABERS, and MEES)
and (2) prevailing leasing practices in each country. Based on
this analysis, the paper develops a new market segmentation
framework to accentuate the different roles that public sector
organisations and private property companies play as both tenants
and landlords across countries. We suggest that national
government policies assist the public sector in leading on better
leasing practices, whereas international certification and benchmarking
schemes (e.g., BREEAM & GRESB) may provide more
fuel to private sector tenants and landlords. The paper concludes with a discussion of the fit between property portfolios and policies,
suggesting that international green lease standards might
assist multinational tenants and property owners in upgrading
both their premises and their operational practices