ABSTRACT
When linking the greening of the urban property industry with other economic sectors, one of the important conditions for achieving a greener economy is the education of consumers and construction industry professionals. The challenge of the construction industry is to come up with innovations, not the least for retrofitting the buildings, which in turn generates greener housing and residential areas too. In sustainability issues concerning land use and real estate, the government has a twofold influence: partly traditional, through tangible infrastructure provision and partly more modern, through cultural consumption and image creation for city competition. The issue about greening the real estate markets has received attention recently from a largely neoclassically trained community of real estate economists. It should be kept in mind that the issues are not only restricted to energy efficiency and other green aspects, but also economic and social issues need to be rethought within the urban real estate sustainability agenda.
