Towards Green Leases And Sustainable Property Management Practice In Africa

PURPOSE: The literature and practice of green building in most of Africa is dominated by architects and builders rather than property management practitioners. This is a paradox, because literature (for example Yudelson, 2014), suggests that it is at the operational (property management) stage rather than at the design and build stages of the building life cycle that the negative environmental impacts of buildings environment are largely generated. The paper investigated three objectives in this context: the nature of negative impacts generated by buildings in their operational stage; whether property management as presently conventionally practiced contains green features that address the negative impacts; and factors inhibiting full operation of green leases. These were with a view to enhancing green property management practice across Africa. Ibadan, (a major city in Nigeria), was offered as an example of a typical African city suitable for the investigations.METHODS Followed: The method was to administer questionnaire on a total enumeration survey of all 69 property management firms in Ibadan as well as two each of their tenants (a total of 138 tenants).FINDINGS: The results identified major carbon dioxide emissions and waste generation as the significant negative impacts of buildings during their operational stage. However, property management practice as conventionally practiced was not found to address these negative impacts; their green focus was restricted to issues such as separate digital metering and use of energy saving bulbs. Major factors pointed to as significantly inhibiting their full adoption of green leases were the lack of awareness of the benefits and cost implications of green leases and lack of training/empowerment of property managers/tenants on operation of such leases.IMPLICATIONS & VALUE: The study has implications for the stimulation of sustainable property management practices in Africa which currently lags the rest of the world in this regard.VALUE: The paper is one of the first to empirically and comprehensively investigate green buildings from the property management perspective.