Tenant Engagement
With 27% of building operational emissions being attributed to occupiers, addressing tenant emissions is an important wedge in stabilizing climate change over the coming years. Base-building energy efficiency improvements are paramount, but the industry cannot achieve its ambitious decarbonization goals without also addressing tenant spaces, which can account for well over 50 percent of total energy consumption in commercial buildings.
This shift in emphasis has created opportunities for the industry to undertake new and tenant-specific initiatives to achieve carbon reduction goals. Thus, the net-zero transition not only has environmental benefits, but also has multi-faceted advantages for both tenants and owners. ULI’s Decarbonization Program works broadly on tenant engagement, emphasizing a business case approach to decarbonizing tenant spaces that can lead to reduced energy use and costs.
Tenant Primer Series
This report series, published by ULI, describes opportunities for owners and tenants to collaborate on the journey to net zero. Leveraging a shared vision of sustainability can help spur shared action between owners and tenants that results in greener and healthier buildings. See Working toward Net Zero: Tenant Engagement Best Practices and Examples for more information.
Taking Green Leases to Net Zero (2023)
Base-building energy efficiency improvements are an important step for decarbonization, but the industry cannot achieve its ambitious carbon reduction goals without also addressing tenant spaces, which can account for well over 50 percent of total energy consumption in commercial buildings. Many tenant companies share the goal of reducing their carbon emissions and have taken action to do so, including setting their own net zero goals. Listen to the episode on CoreNet Global’s What’s Next Podcast here!
Sharing Data to Achieve Net Zero (2023)
To achieve whole-building reductions in carbon emissions, property owners and tenants must work together—sometimes in new and creative ways. The primers provide support to owners in the tenant engagement step of the road map to net zero by highlighting the business case and examples of landlord-tenant collaboration to achieve net zero goals. The primers are organized around common challenges that owners and tenants face, as well as examples of owners and tenants overcoming these challenges together. Listen to the episode on CoreNet Global’s What’s Next Podcast here!
Fitting Out for Net-Zero (2024)
A vast majority of the definitions of a net zero carbon building now consider embodied carbon associated with construction. However, the fit-out phase tends to attract less attention than the construction and operation of buildings, despite the fact that it has a significant impact on the operational performance of the occupied space. Stay tuned for the last 2 primers in this 5-part series! Listen to the episode on CoreNet Global’s What’s Next Podcast here!
Behavior Change to Achieve Net Zero (2025)
Behavior Change to Achieve Net Zero is the fourth installment of the Working toward Net Zero: Tenant Engagement primer series. The prior three publications focused on green leases, data sharing, and tenant fit-outs. This primer highlights behavior-change tactics and shares strategies of how owners can encourage tenants to support the net zero transition. It also highlights real-world project profiles that exemplify behavior-change strategies in action. Listen to the episode on CoreNet Global’s What’s Next Podcast here!
Harnessing Renewable Energy to Achieve Net Zero (2025)
Harnessing Renewable Energy to Achieve Net Zero is the fifth installment of the Working toward Net Zero: Tenant Engagement primer series. The four prior publications focused on green leases, data sharing, tenant fit-outs, and behavior change. This primer highlights strategies for renewable technology adoption and deployment and how owners can encourage tenants to support the net zero transition along with real-world project profiles that exemplify renewable technology strategies in action.
Tenant Energy Optimization Program
ULI’s Tenant Energy Optimization Program (TEOP) helps owners, tenants and other stakeholders work together to integrate energy efficiency into tenant space design and construction to achieve excellent returns in the form of energy conservation and cost savings. For more information, visit the Tenant Energy Optimization Program Website.