The real estate sector significantly contributes to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Many governments encourage the adoption of green certification to reduce negative impacts on the environment. However, real estate stakeholders remain reluctant to develop or invest due to inadequate research on the green certification impact on financial returns. The available research predominantly pertains to the period leading up to 2011, rendering it insufficient and outdated to capture the present circumstances. This paper investigates the financial performance of green-certified buildings considering the period 2011-2023. It estimates whether LEED and Energy Star-certified commercial buildings significantly influence the sale price in the USA using a hedonic regression model. Compared to most studies, which only account for locational and physical building attributes in their regression, this research takes the lead in including socioeconomic factors like population density and per capita income on the MSA level. The results indicate a significant sale price premium of 17 % for green-certified buildings. The study further displays a distinction between the premium for LEED and Energy Star certification. LEED-certified buildings command a significant sale price premium of 37.8 %, whereas the premium for Energy Star-rated buildings is estimated to be insignificant at 6.2 %. However, buildings that hold both certifications exert a significant premium of 39.8 %. Concerning the LEED certification levels, only Silver and Gold-rated LEED buildings lead to a significant sale price premium, with 31.8 % and 54.4 %, respectively. Consequently, this paper demonstrates that green-certified buildings boost the willingness to pay for higher sale prices. The results serve as a model to encourage investors to promote a more sustainable built environment.     «

The real estate sector significantly contributes to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Many governments encourage the adoption of green certification to reduce negative impacts on the environment. However, real estate stakeholders remain reluctant to develop or invest due to inadequate research on the green certification impact on financial returns. The available research predominantly pertains to the period leading up to 2011, rendering it insufficient and outdated to capture...     »