Post the Covid-19 pandemic all buildings wanted to ensure better air circulation and filtration measures to be put in place as clients had started moving out to better equipped buildings to ensure safety of their workforce. And lately in the wake of alarming climate change signs there has been a much greater awareness about green buildings and thus an increase in the demand of office space in LEED certified Green buildings in Delhi. Most of the fortune 500 companies and big multinational conglomerates while looking for office space in Delhi clearly mention their preference for Green buildings owing to their commitments towards a greener planet, same is the story with big indian corporate houses.

Keeping all this in mind there has been a tremendous spurt in the number of companies looking for office space in Green Buildings in Delhi in comparison to previous years.As a result these GRIHA / LEED Certified green office buildings in Delhi are able to lease out faster while attracting better clients despite being pegged at a higher rentals.

Even though there has been an increase in the overall inventory of Green office space buildings in Delhi  simultaneously, however, it is too little and concentrated in a specific geography, Okhla, where a couple of Grade A LEED Certified office buildings have hit the market over the past 2-3 years. Unfortunately,  there has been no addition to the inventory of LEED certified green office space buildings in the Central Delhi office market which is the first choice of most of the companies looking for an office in Delhi.

Due to acute dearth of Green Office Buildings in Delhi it  loses all these valuable clients to the neighbouring cities of Gurgaon and Noida. On the face of it we might say that Delhi paid the cost only in the form of that extra vacant office space inventory and the brunt Delhi bears in the form of the spiral effect of a sluggish residential and retail real estate market mostly goes unnoticed. It only pinches when you see the real estate market in neighbouring cities giving excellent returns and in the meantime Delhi shows a miniscule movement.

The current spurt in luxury residential properties in Gurgaon can completely be attributed to the development of Grade A office space development in Gurgaon, which boasts to house DLF Cyber City, a sprawling 100 acre plus bustling business district home to several Fortune 500 companies and Leading Indian companies, recipient of the first developer owned community in the world to receive prestigious US green Building Council’s certification of “ LEED Platinum for Cities & Communities” verified by Green Business Certification Onc ( GBCI).Apart from Cybercity there are multiple ready and under construction Certified Green Buildings in Gurgaon further cementing its position as the most favourite office space destination in Delhi NCR. Gurgaon now attracts the  best global companies who get their highly paid global talent to the city thus activating  the virtuous circle of growth for the city’s real estate and retail market.

It is the need of the hour that the Delhi government puts strict time bound measures in place to ensure no new construction gets a CC without a Green building Certification and at the same time all existing buildings bring about required changes in their structure to qualify as a Green building. It will not only bring the pollution levels down in Delhi but also ensure that Delhi is able to retain all its MNC clients who will eventually bring back the good old days of the office space market in Delhi.