Sustainability
Market Review

General overview

Certifications for buildings – for energy efficiency purposes or other reasons – remain a very active space in 2026, despite some pushback at a wider European level. Most notably, the EU parliament passed in November of 2025 a package aimed at narrowing the scope of mandatory disclosures. This scaled back environmental regulations and exempted more than 80% of companies from mandatory sustainability disclosures by increasing the reporting threshold to those with over 1,000 employees.

That said, the green certifications sector remains a strategic priority for key stakeholders in the economy, especially in the real estate sector, where developers, investors and bankers are keen to assess whether an asset can still be viable from an energy consumption perspective in 10-15 years. This is the core driver for the real estate sector and we can see this in the approach of various actors. The market has pivoted in recent years from buzzwords and ideals to a much more concrete, quantifiable and strategic approach when it comes to real estate. For instance, refinance operations involving older real estate assets require typically a green audit to assess if the buildings match certain criteria; if not, investments and other steps are then asked to meet certain parameters, like reaching a certain carbon footprint. For newer buildings, banks are only looking at green/energy efficient projects, effectively pushing the developers to meet certain quality standards.

Furthermore, major investors and developers are increasingly more attentive when it comes to sustainability, with many now having dedicated employees to tackle these issues. The developers regularly track the performance of their projects via clear metrics (from waste management to water consumption to energy efficiency to overall carbon footprint), which can provide measurable indicators over time and offer comparisons with other projects.

We note that the retail and office projects are the ones with the most visible energy efficiency narrative when it comes to finance options; this makes green certifications vital for a project’s long-term success. For industrial projects, developers tend to follow established templates and hence, it is not that difficult to align projects within the carbon footprint requirements.

For residential projects, the approach is a bit more different given the nature of the market, with a multitude of clients for each project. The approach has generally been that banks offer a preferential interest rate for green homes, but many times, the qualitative residential projects also tend to display higher prices, making them less appealing in the first place for many potential buyers. Either way, the market is increasingly green-focused, albeit at a slower pace than for commercial real estate.

Also, while the main green LEED/BREEAM certifications tend to be the most headline-grabbing, operational certifications have become increasingly interesting. In a sign of market maturity and highlighting long-term commitment, certifications like WELL Health-Safety or Access4you have been regularly renewed by the major commercial real estate landlords (like Globalworth or AFI Europe).

Certifications in focus

2025 proved a quite active year with over 180 green certifications (BREEAM, LEED) and more than 70 user-oriented certifications (WELL Health-Safety, Access4you). All in all, we can estimate that roughly 4.6 million square meters of real estate received a certification in 2025, with Colliers being involved in more than one third of the total. Given the high number of accessibility and wellbeing certifications, offices led the charge, accounting for over 40% of total, followed by retail, with over 30%.