Retail stores need more incentive to become sustainable, real estate advisor says

Many stores are still not as energy-efficient as they should be, real estate advisor Colliers said. The energy consumption of the stores was too high to reach the goals of the climate agreement, its experts said.

Around 70 percent of all stores do not possess an energy label, according to the organization. This is unacceptable, Colliers said, because store owners are not allowed to rent or sell their property without an energy label. “Binding legislation” is necessary to put store owners on a more sustainable track, it argued.

“The climate report from the UN showed that strict measures are needed”, sustainability expert Jeroen Bloemers said to newspaper AD. "The energy consumption needs to be reduced by 2050."

The climate report released by the UN climate panel, IPCC, on Monday stated that rising sea levels due to global warming are irreversible.

Increasing sustainability is not at the top of the list of priorities for store owners, Colliers said. Shareholders often urge institutional investors to make their properties more energy-efficient but among private owners, this is a smaller concern. Many private owner’s interventions are on a small scale, such as installing LED lamps.

Stores often face little incentive to lower their energy consumption. “The consumer mostly has eyes for the sustainability of the product and not where it is sold. The reduction of the energy consumption for heating or cooling by, for example, opening doors does not have priority”, Bloemers said.

Energy labels range from A++++ for very sustainable buildings to G for buildings that consume a lot of energy. A sustainable building has good isolation, triple HR++ glass and solar panels. For offices, an energy label of C or better will be mandatory from 2023 onwards. The same requirement does not exist for stores.