The green preferences of commercial tenants in Helsinki

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to find out the green preferences of corporate occupiers in relation to their occupied offices. The study aims to focus on the preferences of the end‐users at the organisational level. It also aims to study the relative importance of these preferences against one another and to seek the differences between respondent groups.

Design/methodology/approach

The survey is a case study approach concentrating on the situation in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (Finland) in the summer of 2009. The survey was conducted as an internet‐based questionnaire with e‐mail invitations. The importance of nine given green attributes of the office buildings were ranked on a five‐point Likert scale. A total of 90 responses were analysed.

Findings

The results show that location achieved the highest importance, even though it was rated in terms of the environmental sense only. The energy efficiency of a building was ranked second. The indicative results suggest that industry sector and the position of the respondent effect the importance of the preferences.

Research limitations/implications

The Helsinki Metropolitan Area was the focus of the study, but it is believed that the results can be generalised to other office market areas in Finland.

Practical implications

The findings will benefit the management of occupying organisations, real estate investors and marketers who may now deepen their understanding of the preferences of corporate occupiers. The results may be useful to organisations promoting green buildings.

Originality/value

The mainstream sustainability research in the real estate sector has focused on green buildings in the area of new construction, and economical and technical approaches. This study concentrates on end‐users' considerations at the organisational level and green preferences in the existing office stock.

Citation

Karhu, J., Laitala, A., Falkenbach, H. and Sarasoja, A. (2012), "The green preferences of commercial tenants in Helsinki", Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 50-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/14630011211231437