Green is the biggest opportunity for any business or real estate investment company. Billions in rebates/incentives and skyrocketing consumer demand make green your gateway to increased profits, new customers, elevating your brand, etc. To see how you can use green to become a cutting edge leader in your field, contact me now.

For real estate investors the term greenhabbing may be an unfamiliar concept.  However, with the explosion of interest in green building, greenhabbing is here to stay.  Green building can be separated into two distinct areas: materials and performance.

Materials simply represent the materials used, how they are used and how excess materials are disposed of. Performance relates to the design and actual performance of a structure as it relates to operational expense, indoor air quality, comfort.  You may not usually consider comfort as a performance level but in green building you should.

With that said, the definition of greenhabbing is:

Greenhabbing is the process of remodeling an existing structure (whether it be commercial, residential, industrial, etc) to create a high performance structure.  This new high performance space must meet all of the following conditions:

1. A minimum of 80% of the materials used to greenhab (remodel) the structure must be high-quality sustainable materials that create a healthier living/working environment.

2. When completed, the greenhab must cost a minimum 30% less to operate than a comparable property.

3. It must create less of an environmental impact than a comparable property.

A greenhabbed property is created through the four core elements of high-performance, healthier living, low cost and low environmental impact.

As more builders, real estate rehabbers become interested in becoming ‘green’ builders the incidents of green-washing continues to increase. I am seeing more builders or RE investors call their properties ‘green’ when they’ve actually done very little in terms of greenhabbing. Changing light-bulbs and adding low-VOC paint aren’t groundbreaking anymore.  On a current project I am working on in Buena Park, California, our greenhab crew is adding/installing no less than 30 different ‘green’ elements to the project. These include cellulose exterior wall insulation, wall socket gaskets, recycled carpet, water heater insulation, day-lighting solutions, just to name a few.

So, hopefully this definition will separate the true greenhabbers from the greenwashers.

[Roger/Jose, Ryan/Shan, NWL, keep up the great work!]

Here are a few articles I’ve written for BiggerPockets.com a great real estate investing website.  I’ve gotten to know the owner of the site, Josh Dorkin and really respect the quality of the material he has on the site.

The Michael Corleone Method of Green Real Estate – There are three camps in the world  of ‘green’ like there were 3 sons in the Godfather.  In this post I compare Michael to ‘green’ people who are interested in performance (Save $/Better health) than posturing.

Common Green Real Estate Investing Questions – Here are the most common questions I get asked about green real estate investing and my answers.

Comparing Green Consultants and brain surgeons – Suffice to say you should never hire a part-timer in either profession.

Boosting appraisal values – Useful Energy Star formulas to increase the value of your property after greening it up.

High-performance real estate IS Green – Why green real estate is ALWAYS high-performance.

Green Real Estate Investing 101 Video – A primer to teach you the basics of green real estate investing.

ABC’s of green real estate investing – Just what it says..

7 Lessons from a profitable green real estate investor – Actual real estate investors who’ve gone green and gotten great results.

Enjoy!

If you are leading the ‘green team’ at your company, there are four absolutes you must have have to ensure your success.  This is regardless of the type or size of your company.  In our current business climate, a company that does not have a ‘green’ team or a point person for sustainability is foolhardy.  A few years ago, companies with ‘green’ teams were considered cutting edge.  Now you need one just to keep up with your competition.  Unfortunately there are a lot of people leading green teams who don’t know what they’re doing and thus aren’t having much success.  I wrote about this on BiggerPockets.com recently.

With that said, here are the four absolutes for leading green teams:

1. REBATES/TAX INCENTIVES/CREDITS/GRANT MONEY

You need to know where to go to research rebates/grants/credits, etc for your business at all times.  There are programs available for energy-efficiency, water conservation, purchasing new equipment, reducing city/state zoning/planning time-lines (if you are in construction or going through a remodel).  A great starting point I’ve mentioned before for rebate info is Database for State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.

There are literally billions of dollars available to businesses and real estate owners to go green. If you lead a green team then it falls to you to find these programs for your organization.

2. FUNDAMENTALS OF GREEN BUILDING CONCEPTS

To improve efficiency (and thus save $/reduce environmental impact) you need a general understanding of basic green building concepts.  If you learn the basics of how buildings operate and how energy is used/lost in a typical building envelop, you’ll be able to make a bigger impact.  A great book for this is Building Green. It will give you a very basic understanding so that you can make the right decisions on your property/in your office.  It’s been my experience that once you understand how your building is operating it’s easier to see the problem areas and potential solutions.

3. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Let’s say you had a good understanding of green building and know where to get the rebates. You’ve written an ‘eco-charter’ and have a green strategy in place for your organization.  This all means nothing if you can’t translate the value of it to your internal team.  Put simply, the team won’t implement it if they don’t see the value.  Here’s how to get buy-in:

a. Explain that green is more profitable and thus potentially rewarding financially for employees.
b. Explain that green creates a healthier living/work environment for them.
c. Explain that green is a tremendous competitive advantage for the company.  Show them the formula: GBS = PG = CS = EJS.  Effectively, a green business strategy equals profitable growth for the company which equals company stability which in turn equals employee job stability.

4. EXTERNAL BRANDING SKILLS

Once you’ve gotten buy-in from your internal team, you need to be able to communicate it to your external customers.  External customers can include: customers, prospects, vendors, city officials, community, etc.  This skill is more art than science because you need to be able to translate the benefits of what you did (going green) to the benefit to them.  For example:

a. “We recently insulated our walls with denim insulation to save energy and protect the earth” (Boring and ineffective statement).
b. “We chose to insulate our building with wall insulation because it makes us more efficient and reduces our expenses” (A little better).
c. “We installed denim insulation because it will save us 30% in operations costs annually.  This savings allows us to improve the quality of our products while reducing our prices to you” (Much better).

This is the area I see companies get wrong all the time.  Either they say too little about what they’re doing and why, or they overstate their ‘commitment’ to the environment.  The advice here is to be honest and be specific. Your customers will appreciate your candor.

If you’re able to follow these four absolutes you’ll go a long way to developing a effective green team, regardless of your industry, your age, your position, etc.  Remember that efficiency is great, but effectiveness is king.

As always feel free to email any questions to me at: jim (at) jimsimcoe (dot) (com).