A new global survey of 1,254 senior business executives, including more than 300 CEOs, demonstrates the central role real estate and facility strategies play in corporate sustainability efforts. Nearly half of all respondents named as their leading sustainability priority a goal that is addressed primarily or solely through real estate strategies.
The survey, conducted independently by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), was co-sponsored by global real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle and seven other leading companies from different industries: A.T. Kearney, Bank of America, ExxonMobil, Orange, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP and SunGard. The overall report, issued by EIU today, sheds light on the growing importance of corporate sustainability in enabling companies to compete and to attract customers. While the survey did not focus specifically on real estate topics, 46 percent of respondents selected one of three real estate strategies as the number-one sustainability priority from a list of 10 possible priorities.
"CEOs and other corporate officers are very focused on improving sustainability, but they may not realize the major impact their real estate departments can make in achieving their goals," said Dan Probst, Chairman, global environmental sustainability board at Jones Lang LaSalle. "As this study shows, the path to sustainability often starts with real estate and facility strategies."
Specifically, the EIU survey found:
