Corporate Real Estate and Green Buildings: Higher Education Requirements

Purpose – Driven by laws, and regulations, the transformation of the built environment is a herculean task. Green buildings seem to be a megatrend in corporate real estate management, especially for firms headquartered in the region Europe. This contribution aims to explore what the requirements of a respective corporate management fulfilling actual and future applicable laws, regulations, and responsibilities of green buildings are. Furthermore, it is examined to what extent the higher education programs take these requirements into account and what the gaps are.Methods – The study is based on literature review, interviews with professionals, corporate reports, and collected data of academic programs in Europe.Results – Green buildings requires different aspects of corporate management which is not represented by a singular discipline. In Europe, higher education programs focus some of the required content to prepare students for a corporate green building management but integrate rarely all knowledge required throughout a building life cycle. As a result, a framework of an education model is introduced integrating disciplines, and knowledge required of green building management.Conclusion – Only few higher education programs appear to be considering the transdisciplinary context of green buildings requiring knowledge in, amongst others, real estate, workplaces, architecture and engineering, facility management and its services. This contribution provides fundamental considerations and presents a structural framework enabling higher education in green building management.