44 pc of India’s Grade-A office stock is green certified, says JLL

MUMBAI: A total of 321 million sq ft of grade-A office stock is green certified in India. This is 43.8 per cent of the total stock of 732 million sq ft spread across seven cities, as of March 2022. The seven cities are Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata.

Delhi NCR leads the overall share of green-certified stock in the country with approx. 67 million sq ft, closely followed by Mumbai with approx 66 million sq ft. Collectively, Mumbai and Delhi NCR account for 41.2 per cent of the total, green-certified stock in the country.

When it comes to individual city-level penetration of green buildings, Kolkata has the highest penetration level of 59.5 per cent because of a low stock base and Hyderabad comes in at 52 per cent. Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Hyderabad are the top four cities in terms of overall Grade-A office stock and account for over 3/4th of the existing green footprint.

Institutional investors own 54 per cent of Grade-A green certified stock in India. Institutional investors, including REITs hold 220 million sq ft of Grade-A office stock, which is about 30 per cent of the country’s overall office stock. Of this, over 79 per cent or 175 million sq ft is green-certified.

Going green has its advantages. There is a 13.2 per cent average rental premium in green certified IT buildings and a 36.1 per cent average premium in non-IT buildings.

“Even in the two-year period immediately preceding the pandemic, the share of gross leasing in green-certified buildings was higher at 53 per cent and rose further to 57 per cent during the pandemic period. This clearly outlines the greater shift underway in occupier preferences for sustainable, green-certified buildings,” said Radha Dhir, CEO-Country Head, India, JLL.