Going green to get the gold

By Ovidiu Nicolae Posirca, Contributing Editor

Download BR’s Real Estate Guide 2021 HERE

The European Union (EU) could set the global standard for regulating sustainable investing as it aims to become carbon-neutral by 2050. But this isn’t news to real estate players. Companies in this industry have been constantly competing to deliver greener and greener projects that could consume fewer resources and keep costs in check in the long term. Without the badge of sustainability for their buildings, developers might find it harder to attract quality tenants and get bank loans in the near future.

The current stock of buildings is generating around 40 percent of the EU’s total energy consumption and some 36 percent of its carbon emissions. Already, new residential projects being developed in Romania have to comply with the tight regulation of near-zero energy buildings (NZEB).

Sustainable development doesn’t come cheap. For Romanians, green apartments will be more expensive, while on the commercial property market, developers could command higher prices due to costlier technologies. The topic of sustainable investment is covered extensively in this year’s issue of Business Review’s Real Estate Guide. In last year’s edition, I was pointing out that we had to “adapt or else,” and the health crisis has already shown us that we could be using our current building stock more efficiently.

Developers have already started to come up with solutions to accommodate Romanians’ changing perspectives on work, shopping, and leisure. Setting the ambitious goal of turning Bucharest or another regional city into a green investment hub would go hand in hand with the EU’s sustainability ambitions. Property projects with green certifications have already been open across the country and investment flows will continue in the coming years. The real estate sector could be one of the engines that turn sustainability into a mainstream topic as it permeates through numerous layers of the economy.

The EUR 30 billion that Romania is aiming to get through the Recovery and Resilience Facility could be a booster for the country’s complex efforts to make its economy greener while improving living conditions for as many people as possible.