From June, 2006 Harvard Business Review:

“Green building means lower overhead costs, greater employee productivity, less absenteeism, and stronger employee attraction and retention. Companies as diverse as Bank of America, Genzyme, IBM, and Toyota are constructing or have already moved into green buildings. Green is not simply getting more respect; it is rapidly becoming a necessity as corporations—as well as home builders, retailers, health care institutions, governments, and others—push green buildings fully into the mainstream over the next five to ten years.

In fact, the owners of standard buildings face massive obsolescence. They must act now to protect their investments. “Building owners are starting to do reviews of their portfolios to see how green their buildings are and what they need to do to meet growing market demand,” says Ché Wall, chair of the World Green Building Council. Soon, financial institutions and investors will use new valuation methodologies to quantify important green building factors like productivity and long-term life cycle costs when determining real estate values.”

These market pressures will move to the residential market as well.

John Elkington argues if we examine a “triple bottom line” in accounting for our decision-making, we would expand the traditional company reporting framework to take into account not just financial outcomes but also environmental and social performance.

• Financial – Building green, if pursued early in the building design process, is not only cost competitive with conventional building approaches, but it also pays dividends in reduced utility, maintenance and replacement costs.
• Social – Improved indoor air quality, natural daylighting and user comfort combine to boost productivity and reduce absenteeism in green buildings. Local economies benefit as well because more emphasis is placed on purchasing locally produced goods and services in order to minimize embodied energy – the amount of energy needed to bring goods and services from greater distances.
• Environmental – Less site disturbance, more durable products that harmlessly decompose, and structures that actually produce their own usable energy through solar photovoltaics or other renewable sources are all examples of environmentally friendly design and construction . These and other environmentally benign features and approaches combine to reduce the amount of resource extraction from and adverse impacts upon the natural world. Green building means learning to build with nature.