Empirical Study of the Impact of Green Certification on the Rental Income : Do Green Certifications Add Value to Office Buildings?

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether or not green certificates have an impact on income-generating commercial buildings' rent compared to similar non-certified commercial buildings. In addition, evaluate if there exists a variation in the rent premium between the different certifications and if the rental premium increases with the distance from city center. To answer the research questions a quantitative approach with hedonic pricing regressions has been conducted. For the purpose of this study, three types of hedonic regressions models have been estimated. To capture the effect of green certificates, the models have controlled for structural, locational and, quality attributes of the buildings. The first model examinedwhether certified office buildings archive a rent premium compared to non-certified buildings. The second model separated the label into indicator variables to capture the effect of each individual label. Lastly, the third model analyzed the progressive effect of the interaction between distance and certification. This study uses a dataset of rent observations for office buildings from four major Swedish cities – Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Uppsala – in order to analyze the rent premium of green certifications. The result of this study indicates that there exists a premium of 4,9 to 5,4 percent for certified buildings. When investigating each certification label the results indicate a rental premium of 10 percent forBREEAM, 5,1 percent for LEED, and 4,4 percent for Miljöbyggnad. Lastly, the finding suggests an incremental premium for certified buildings located farther away from the city center. This study contributes to the rising literature on the topic of green office buildings, as it is the first study to investigate the rental impact of green certification on the Swedish market.