Sustainable management of real estate : is it really sustainability?

This paper investigates from a management perspective exactly what building owners and managers of commercial real estate are actually doing in the guise of sustainability. This research investigates key owners of real estate portfolios in Australia and New Zealand, and examines what they perceive sustainability to mean to their commercial real estate portfolios and their level of implementation. The research uses a qualitative framework in order to gain an understanding of owners’ perceptions of sustainability. The findings reveal that owners perceive sustainability to be very important to the longevity of their portfolios. However, at present, sustainability factors are limited to resource efficiency measures in their real estate portfolios. Consequently, this research questions whether current interpretation and implementation of sustainability in commercial real estate is merely ‘changing the name’ of best practice management to ‘sustainability.’