The California Sustainability Alliance, Sacramento, Calif., released version 2.0 of its Green Leases Toolkit . The toolkit is an online resource designed to help tenants and landlords of commercial real estate overcome obstacles to greening their office space. Among the additions to the toolkit are a list of best practices to assist landlords with the leasing process; along with sample green work letters, marketing materials, and information for tracking and monitoring the efficiency of buildings.
This effort focused on "green leasing", i.e., integrating sustainability practices into the entire commercial leasing process. This includes service provider selection; marketing of buildings, development of green specifications; request for proposal (RFP) and letter of intent (LOI) drafting; site selection and due diligence; and the negotiation and drafting of realistic and enforceable lease language.

The templates offered in the Green Leasing Toolkit 2.0 are established processes within the leasing industry, hence most of these tools should be relatively easy to implement. These tools can be used by both landlords and tenants who manage or occupy large portfolios of facilities as well as small business owners and landlords who hope to green an individual building.
The Toolkit supports tenants and landlords in the following ways:

• Educating their organizations
• Developing their own green leasing policies and requirements
• Communicating policies and requirements to the market
• Measuring and comparing the green attributes of different buildings
• Developing specific lease language

"We see many more tenants actively seeking green space, and most new commercial buildings are being designed to very high standards," explained Sean Ivery of Navigant Consulting, the group responsible for administering the California Sustainability Alliance. "Our clients are very interested in greening their leased space but face considerable barriers. The Toolkit provides practical advice and tools designed to help tenants and landlords develop and implement technologies and policies that support sustainable office environments."

The Green Leases Toolkit is available online here .

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