Real estate sector focus on sustainability

Increased technological development accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and sustainability will mark the future of the Portuguese real estate market according to key players in the sector.

According to Jornal Económico, the CEO of the André Jordan Group, Gilberto Jordan believes that post-pandemic people will look at the world through different eyes, and their priorities will be directed more to sustainability and caring for the environment as a way of improving their quality of life. “This means that technology will have to meet these needs too,” he said.
According to the study ‘Top 10 Global CRE Trends’ from consultancy JLL published this year, the future will be marked by the “race towards net zero emissions”, “responsible real estate” and a “commitment from the real estate sector to bring a positive change”.
Another study, also from JLL, published a month ago called ‘Building a New Future with Sustainability’, predicts that sustainability will become mainstream in the real estate market.
The study, ‘Portugal in the Sights of Business Service Centres (BSC): The Attractiveness of the Real Estate Market’, produced by the consultancy Savills, emphasises this trend and points out that this type of building which meets environmental standards, will enjoy a greater commercial performance and occupational uptake.
José Martos, CEO of Saint-Gobain Portugal argues that in terms of technological development, attention should be focused on the mechanisation of processes in construction and sustainability. “Since buildings in Europe are responsible for 36% of CO2 emissions and one-third of natural resource consumption. It is urgent to work on these two pillars, ensuring that the first is directly related to the second to have a positive impact.”
Even regarding the development of services, the issue of sustainability is on the table as a goal. Nuno Pereira, CCO & Operations of Prime Yield (Gloval) believes that tecnology has been “the greatest strategic driver” for the organisation. He illustrates this with a continued focus on the development of an automated valuation model (AVW), an automatic real estate evaluation system that uses mathematic modelling.
But modernisation requires investment. In the latest aforementioned JLL study, sustainable construction requires an additional investment of between 1% to 5% of the total project, but could represent an additional premium of between 6% to 11%, in the case of commercial renting, while at the same time fostering operational cost reductions that could be as much as 50% on energy, 40% on water consumption, and 70% on waste production.