“We’re seeing a link between strong environmental credentials and both longer-term commitments from tenants and meaningfully higher rents. Sustainability is increasingly part of the leasing decision, alongside location, amenities and building quality. That’s especially the case for global corporate tenants, who are seeking to align their portfolios with long-term sustainability targets.”

Hunter Booth, Director, Central London Agency, Savills

“In London, BREEAM Excellent has been a planning policy requirement for many offices in recent years, while BREEAM Outstanding represents a voluntary commitment to best practice. In our experience, businesses are willing to pay more and commit to longer leases for the highest performing sustainable offices. Landlords and occupiers don’t consider certification an end in itself, but they recognise its value as an independently verified framework for future proofing offices against climate change, tightening carbon requirements and rising energy costs.”

Georgios Askounis, Director, Savills Earth

“In Amsterdam, the debate is gradually shifting from green premiums towards transition risk and brown discounts. As occupier expectations evolve and regulation becomes more demanding, sustainability is increasingly becoming part of the market baseline. Buildings that fail to keep pace risk higher capex requirements, weaker occupier demand and accelerated obsolescence.

From a valuation perspective, the key question is becoming more about whether less sustainable buildings face an increasing discount. Sustainability is not simply about creating upside; increasingly, it is about preserving value and protecting against downside risk.”

Martijn Onderstal, Head of Valuation, Savills Netherlands

“Demand for Grade A offices with excellent environmental credentials is strongest in the Central CBD. This reflects the concentration of large multinational businesses in this sub-market who typically place a higher value on sustainability certifications. There is also a scarcity of green certified buildings in Hong Kong, which means that demand is concentrated around a limited pool of suitable stock.

In Hong Kong, this research on green premiums provides a useful market signal. Green certification matters, but operates alongside other factors such as tenant composition, supply-demand balance, and building-specific and cyclical factors.”

Jack Tong, Director, Research and Consultancy, Savills Hong Kong

“It’s hard to identify any discernible green premium in Singapore. The vast majority of Grade A office stock is green-certified via the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Scheme. The scarcity of Grade A office space in the CBD also means rental levels are often driven more by supply-demand dynamics. Even so, most landlords view green certification as essential, seeing the cost of achieving it as preferable to the longer-term risk of accelerated obsolescence.”

Alan Cheong, Executive Director, Research and Consultancy, Savills Singapore

“In the US, we see a measurable but relatively modest green rental premium, although this varies between cities. Few landlords actively market buildings as ‘green’. Instead, sustainability tends to be embedded within a broader proposition around building quality, amenity, wellbeing and the workplace experience. Energy performance is important, as it offers a more tangible financial benefit through lower operating costs.”

Wendy Feldman Block, Executive Managing Director, Savills US

Our research methodology

Using a bespoke, hedonic rental model, our research controlled for a range of factors known to influence office rents. These include building grade, age, proximity to major transport links, floorplate size and whether the office could be defined as a ‘trophy’ or ‘ultra-prime’ building. Green certification refers to LEED in New York and Chicago, BREEAM in Amsterdam and London, BCA Green Mark in Singapore, and LEED and/or BEAM in Hong Kong. This approach allowed us to isolate the rent premium linked to environmental credentials from other characteristics that may influence pricing.

These premiums are intended as benchmark figures, with the actual premium achieved by an individual building depending on its specific characteristics and market conditions. We examined rent data from more than 2,000 offices across six global cities: Amsterdam, London, New York, Chicago, Singapore and Hong Kong.