Green Leasing: Coming Soon to SFTool!

On Monday, the General Services Administration accepted two awards at the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Conference and Expo in Washington, D.C. They’ve got a great blog post  describing the awards they won, which included being recognized as a Green Lease Leader. Here at SFTool, we’ve had green leasing on our mind for a while, and are preparing to launch content that will help you figure out what green leasing is and why it has become so important. Our panel of industry experts spoke at BOMA's conference on Monday as well, and will speak again at Greenbuild in Los Angeles in October, so if you’re curious, come to the session! What we’ve learned is that tenants, both Federal and commercial, are increasingly requiring sustainability in their buildings, but a large part of their facilities are leased; GSA has more than 8,000 leases nationwide! Incorporating sustainable strategies into leases is necessary to successfully make the building you occupy more green and efficient. However, green leases are still not fully understood by everyone involved. Landlords, tenants, and brokers can all benefit from learning more about how green clauses impact a building’s performance and how they affect everyone’s bottom line. To this end, we are working on a Cost-Effective Upgrades Calculator to help building owners and tenants see what building upgrades or adjustments could be made and paid back during the life of a lease. The results are based on building size and climate zone, and can be bookmarked so you can always revisit or share with your building’s decisionmakers. On top of all that, you will be able to select individual building upgrades to learn about what they are, how they impact your building, and how to start implementing them. All of this will be framed by the information from our conference panels, so don’t worry if you can’t make it to LA. Look for the prototype on www.SFTool.gov in the next month or two!