Making Green Real – How to Promote Greenery in Real Estate Development

Abstract

Climate change and rising temperatures particularly affect the built environment and intensify the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in cities. Nature-based solutions can have a balancing function and reduce overheating. However, greenery still receives too little attention in architecture and is added as an additional element at the end of the planning phase or even after the building has been constructed. For a climate resilient urban development in the future, in addition to a change in processes, a change in real estate development and in the project management is necessary. At least, three preconditions must be met for this to happen: • Sound knowledge base: Many studies already exist proving the positive effects of nature-based solutions for densely built cities. However, the knowledge transfer to real estate companies is still insufficient as they require precise and site-specific information showing effectiveness of greenery on microclimate, building envelope and indoor temperature. At best, analyses apply a system view and consider interrelations with water and energy. • Greenery-friendly planning framework: Real estate development takes place in compliance with local planning standards and procedures. Planning strategies and regulations, standards, urban development contracts and funding programmes strongly influence urban design and development and hereby have great potential to promote greening. • Integrated mindset: In architecture and real estate development, it is still not standard to include greenery and nature-based solutions in design, planning and construction. Building optimization also includes greening. Thus, it needs an integrated mindset regarding greenery as natural part of architecture. This requires more awareness and knowledge about climate change and the benefits of nature-based solutions on quality of life and value of real estates in the long run. The paper summarizes the experience of an interdisciplinary cooperation in the research project GreenDeal4Real and addresses all three aspects in detail. Analyses of the planning framework in Vienna and impacts of greening measures on the microclimate are described and general conclusions for more green in real estate development are drawn