Purpose – Using a unique data set, the purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that tenants pay increased accommodation costs for space in energy efficient office property. Design/methodology/approach – The authors obtain lease contracts for office space in central Sydney, Australia. Empirical data on annual gross face rent and contract terms from each lease are combined with building characteristics and measured energy performance at the time of lease. Hedonic regression isolates the effect of energy performance on gross face rent. Findings – No significant price differentials emerged as a function of energy performance, leading to a conclusion that tenants are not willing to pay for energy efficiency. Six factors – tenancy floor level, submarket location, proximity to transit, market fixed effects, building quality specification and, surprisingly, outgoings liability – consistently explain over 85 per cent of gross face rent prices in Sydney. Research limitations/implications – Rent premiums from an asset owner's perspective could emerge as a result of occupancy premiums, market timing or agent bias combined with statistically insignificant rental price differentials. Practical implications – Tenants are likely indifferent to energy costs because the paper demonstrates that energy efficiency lacks financial salience and legal obligation in Sydney. This means that split incentives between owner and tenant are not a substantial barrier to energy efficiency investment in this market. Originality/value – This study is the first to thoroughly examine energy efficiency rent price premiums at the tenancy scale in response to disclosure of measured performance. It also presents evidence against the common assumption that rent premiums at the asset scale reflect tenant willingness to pay for energy efficiency.

Sustainable living will require megacity-level infrastructural support designs and paradigms.

No abstract

Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) acknowledges a broad range of environmental and socio-economic outcomes but the link between design intentions and operational performance is not always clear. This may be due in part to a lack of shared principles that remove bias and inconsistency in assessing the operational performance of IUWM. This paper investigates the possibility of developing shared principles through examination of shared objectives and shared indicators within two logical and integrated frameworks for urban residential developments that aspire for IUWM and sustainable development. The framework method was applied using very different approaches-one a top-down urban planning process, the other a bottom-up community consultation process. Both frameworks highlight the extent to which IUWM is part of a broad social and environmental system. Core environmental performance objectives and indicators were very similar, highlighting the potential to develop shared principles in reporting and benchmarking the environmental performance of neighbourhood developments. Socio-economic indicators were highly variable due to process and likely contextual differences, thus it is unclear if the influence of IUWM on these variables can transcend the social context unless the practice of urban water management can expand its core responsibility beyond "hard" physical infrastructure.

No abstract