Uncovering A Pricing Premium For Green Offices In The Uk Using Current Eco-Labels

The aim of this PhD research is to investigate whether energy efficient offices in the United Kingdom command a price premium when compared to energy inefficient offices that possess otherwise similar characteristics. Several initiatives have emerged that attempt to achieve a reduction in overall energy consumption in the built environment in the UK. But the widespread adoption of environmental standards to assess both existing and new buildings in the commercial property market has thus far taken place relatively slowly. The introduction of energy ratings by the UK government is expected to be the first step towards government taxation measures aimed at penalising energy inefficient stock with a view to reducing CO2 emissions. But another issue is whether energy efficient office buildings command a rental premium as opposed to energy inefficient office buildings. Although such a premium for energy efficiency has been identified in the United States, no such evidence exists yet in this area in the UK. In order to reveal a premium for energy efficiency or green attributes, information is needed on the property characteristics, property transactions and ecolabels. None of this information is currently readily available in a single database in the United Kingdom. One of the goals of the PhD will be to create a database that will combine these three key tenets for London initially, and then to potentially expand this database for other cities in the UK. Data will be collected from commercial property data providers. The difficulty appears to be in bringing together all the various datasets that are needed to do this. Various modelling approaches will be assessed on their usefulness for generating results from this database. They can help to reveal the potential premium that is currently paid for green features.