SUSTAINABILITY IN CORPORATE REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT - Environmental responsibility -point of view

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine Corporate Real Estate Management (CREM) and how it can create added value to companies; to identify the issues in CREM, which can be used to achieve sustainability, by combining it with different aspects of corporate responsibilities; environmental, social and economic. The main focus in this study is on environmental responsibility. The main research problem of the study is: How Nordic and/or Baltic based large premises user companies can achieve sustainable CREM? As a result generic model of how to achieve sustainable CREM was constructed. This study is descriptive and empirical in its nature, and in this study nomothetic research method was used. In order to understand the topic, performing literature was gathered, which focused on the added value of CREM, sustainability issues in CREM and corporate responsibility issues. Based on this previous literature, a theoretical framework was formed. In order to achieve sustainability in CREM, there are several tools and issues which need to be considered. Because this study focuses mainly on environmental responsibility, the tools which can be used to achieve this are studied more thoroughly. Sustainability can be achieved in several different ways, but in CREM the most significant ways are to implement environmental certifications and -management systems, up-to-date reporting, educate users to behave more sustainable way, and taking into account corporate responsibilities and the role of existing buildings. Over half of the respondents already consider environmental responsibility to have significant impact on the sustainability of premises. The increased demand of transparency can be seen in the rate of the regular reporting on corporate responsibility matters, 93% of respondents already report to different stakeholders. Many of the respondents, 69 % of them, have Environmental Management Systems in place; and almost half of them already occupy environmentally certified premises. Most of the companies, 73% of them, measure environmental impacts of their premises and have set different types of CO2 emission goals. But the premises proportion in organization’s total CO2 emissions is still underestimated, 23 % being the average.