Sustainability in Real Estate

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course will introduce students to the multifaceted concept of “sustainability”. The course will include alternative definitions of sustainability, particularly in regard to property rights and development, and will also introduce causes and effects of sustainability as applied to real estate fields in built environments. The first part of the course will include backgrounds and a number of theories in order to place sustainability in a broader theoretical frame. During the second half of the course we will begin to apply sustainability principles and concepts to real estate development and investment. We will examine how sustainability is manifest in urban planning and community development and apply both economic and urban planning principles to such concepts as the value of biodiversity, water systems and quality in urban areas; suburban sprawl, redevelopment of urban “brownfields”, among other issues. It also introduces concepts related to “green development,” and to LEED criteria and other measures of sustainability applied to the built environment. The last part of the course will discuss how to achieve and how to measure sustainability of real estate.