Three major trends characterize the market evolution: a spectacular growth of interest coming for retail developers, along with positive signals from the industrial and residential segments; increased demand for sustainability outside Bucharest; the rise of a new type of customer, the end-user.

Big real estate investors from Romania and from across the borders, small developers or even final users are among the new clients contracted by BuildGreen in 2016. The new contracts include iconic projects such as The Bridge, developed by Forte Partners, Unirii View, the office tower built by Belgian investor Yves Weerts in downtown Bucharest, or Globalworth Tower, owned by Globalworth investment fund. Also, in 2016, NEPI assigned BuildGreen to manage a thorough certification process that covers NEPI’s entire property portfolio in four key markets.

The major change of 2016 comes from the retail segment – which has become a second sustainability market driver, next to the office market. In BuildGreen’s case, retail accounts for 29% of the total number of projects assisted for certification, respectively 46% of the portfolio’s total area. Office buildings still dominate from the numerical point of view (62% of the total number of projects), but account for a smaller total area (41% of the portfolio expressed in m2).

The industrial and residential segments also show signs of increase, reaching a percentage of 13% in the total certified area in 2016.

BuildGreen ended the year 2017 with a portfolio increase of over 100%, surpassing the level of 2,7 million m2 of properties assisted for certification.  Also, the year 2016 marks the expansion of BuildGreen’s activity in the CEE region, by entering 3 new markets – Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia. (source: BuildGreen)