I am away this week in Japan. But in the wee hours of the far east morning, I've been thinking about financing the future of green building. After the financial system's collapse at the end of last year and the aftermath we've been dealing with since, everyone is rethinking how financial services should work. The market is incredibly risk adverse at the moment after a decade of incredible risk taking, leading to calamity. As the market levels back out, I wonder if there aren't new metrics the financial services industry should think about when considering commericial loans in the future, specifically when it comes to commericial real estate. 

Should the sustainability of a given project, be it a new build or a renovation be considered when a financial services company considers lending? Understand I don't mean the government should mandate such parameters, rather, would the smartest financial service companies partner with the most sustainable projects? There are some compelling arguments that say yes, like sustainable projects tend to hold higher real estate values on the market. There are also complications, by what metric should a bank or lending institution judge sustainablity? Solely basing such a decision on LEED rating seems unfair, but there needs to be an objective measure, what should it be? I'm not an expert in this field, so what are your thoughts? Spead the word on this one to professionals you know in the financial services space. I'm interested in knowing what they think about the future of the commerical real estate industry.

PS the image above is Tokyo, where I am at the moment, for no reason other than that's where I am at the moment.