Decisions by Key Office Building Stakeholders to Build or Retrofit Green in Toronto’s Urban Core

Abstract

The environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings—especially in global cities such as Toronto—is well documented. Green mitigation of new and existing buildings has also been researched. Few studies, however, have focused on the decision to build or retrofit green. Are key stakeholders in Toronto’s office building sector aligning their decisions to achieve sustainable environmental goals? Do they support LEED certification regardless of the impact on market valuation? Are tenants willing to pay higher rents in LEED office buildings? The study first obtained data on 16 LEED and 52 conventional buildings to determine if LEED certification has a significant impact on net asking rent. Pearson correlation and linear regression analysis did not find LEED certification to be statistically significant in explaining the variance in net asking rent (market value). The second stage included interviews with senior executives engaged in Toronto’s office building sector. The expert informtabants were asked to assess if financial drivers are the deciding factor in decisions to pursue LEED certification. They concurred that LEED certification is not the primary driver. It is a combination of numerous factors that overall have an impact on a firm’s financial bottom line.

Tripartite Evolutionary Game Analysis of Stakeholder Decision-Making Behavior in Energy-Efficient Retrofitting of Office Buildings

“…A variety of research methods have been used to study stakeholders in energy-efficient retrofitting, including literature reviews [5,12,38,39], expert interviews [9,40], case studies [21,41,42], social network analysis (SNA) [17,25,43], and game theory [16,44]. However, these studies only statically analyze stakeholders, without considering the dynamic interaction effects between the stakeholders.…”

“…Because retrofitting existing buildings requires the cooperation and participation of users, it is more challenging than newly construction [14]. In general, users' intentions are most directly affected by the price premium [9]. As incomes increase, people become more concerned with the improvements in life quality and productivity [34].…”

“…They are widely accepted in many countries to meet the overall nationwide energy-efficiency objectives [7]. However, new buildings make up only a tiny fraction of the total building stock each year [8], especially in urban cores, and constructing green buildings does not offset the negative environmental impact of existing ones [9]. As a result, retrofitting existing buildings with energy-efficient features is of critical importance [10].…”

El Impacto De Las Prácticas Sostenibles En El Desempeño Financiero De Las Empresas: Una Revisión De La Literatura

“…Los hallazgos de estos estudios han sido mixtos, algunos indican una correlación positiva entre las PS y el DF (Khan et al, 2023;Yousefian et al, 2023;Ghardallou, 2022) (entre otros), otros sugieren una relación negativa (Kim et al, 2022;Ensign et al, 2021;Činčalová y Hedija, 2020), mientras que otros establecen que no existe una correlación significativa, al menos en el corto plazo, entre las PS y el DF de las empresas, alineándose con la "hipótesis de las variables moderadoras" (Fernando et al, 2021;Solari y Méndez Sáenz, 2020;Yang y Jang, 2020). Algunos estudios han encontrado que las empresas con fuertes compromisos y acciones para lograr los ODS tienden a tener un mejor desempeño financiero a largo plazo (Betti et al, 2018).…”

Establishing criteria for smart retrofitting decision-making for buildings

“…Among the many studies related to SR, some focused on energy retrofits [22,23] or green retrofits [24,25]. Some studies considered only economic or technical criteria [11,16,26].…”