Green preferences of the office occupier organizations, evidences from Finland

Green attributes of the occupied building seem to have a growing importance for the real estate occupiers. In this study the situation in the Helsinki Metropolitan area was researched by a questionnaire conducted in 2009. 90 responses were taken into a detailed analysis representing micro and large companies, local and global companies and different branch of industries including public sector. The results show that globally operating companies appreciate environmental attributes on a higher level than nationally operating companies. There are differences between the sizes of the companies as well. Middle-sized companies do not value the environmental attributes as high as smaller or larger ones. Also the existence of facility strategy clearly indicates the growing importance of environmental attributes. The differences between various lines of industry somewhat strengthens the earlier results, e.g. stating that the energy and industry branches emphasize the environmental aspects in their office premises as well. The differences were identified also in relation to the position of the respondents. CEOs least appreciated the environmental attributes, while e.g. real estate managers saw them to have generally greater importance. When considering single attributes, location achieved the highest importance, even though it was asked only in terms of environmental sense. The importance of energy efficiency of a building was ranked second, although environmental building certificates were valued the least important attribute. Since sustainability issues are mostly covered in the newer buildings in Finland it may be hard to see the value added by the certificates. The results suggest several topics for the future research, e.g. a research on location preferences in an environmental context. It would be useful to have a deeper understanding of the main phrase of real estate business: ìlocation, location, locationî. Does it cover ñ in these days - the environmental considerations or are they still excluded?