Green Building Law Blog : Green Building Lawyer & Attorney : Shari Shapiro: Calliope Communications, LLC

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In an interesting business move, property management company Jones Lang LaSalle announced today that it would begin offering "Pre-Acquisition Sustainability Services." 

According to BusinessGreen:

Pre-Acquisition Sustainability Service (PASS) would build on existing due diligence processes and help firms identify the environmental risks and opportunities associated with a property.

What's so interesting about this? The reason that JLL is doing it:

Alex Edds, associate director in Jones Lang LaSalle's Sustainability Services team, said that the combination of new legislation, increased operational costs, growing demands from occupiers and the possibility of securing higher rents for greener buildings meant property investors increasingly needed to understand the environmental performance of buildings across their portfolio.

I think that this is a great idea--developing due diligence tools which assess in advance the green building legal issues is a great risk management tool.  This would also be an opportunity to assess the leases for a rental property to determine the benefits and responsbilities for pursuing sustainable building upgrades and operations approaches. 

An interesting thing to reflect on, however, is whether JLL (as parent of the Green Globes Rating System) is in an awkward position to provide these services.  Will it promote Green Globes as the standard for evaluating buildings for due diligence purposes?  Is that a conflict of interest, or merely using a tool to provide other, marketable services?