New BOMA Green Lease Guide Offers Solutions for Writing Sustainability into Lease Agreements

(DENVER—June 22, 2008) The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International has released its new lease guide, Guide to Writing a Commercial Real Estate Lease, Including Green Lease Language, featuring a step-by-step instruction to help building owners and managers write green operations and management practices into their lease agreements. The guide updates the 2005 version of The Guide to Writing a Commercial Real Estate Lease and was reworked to incorporate legal language to facilitate ongoing implementation of sustainable building practices.

BOMA’s new lease guide was developed to address commonly cited barriers to implementing green building practices. The guide serves as both a legal-language tool to help building owners and managers maintain a green building through operations and management practices, and also serves as an education tool for working with brokers and tenants to outline what is expected of tenants in a high-performance green building and the responsibilities of all parties involved in the ongoing efforts to keep it green and encourage continuous improvement.

“The creation of BOMA’s green lease guide is a significant step towards achieving energy efficiency and sustainable building practices,” said BOMA International Chairman and Chief Elected Officer Brenna S. Walraven, RPA, CPM, managing director, national property management, USAA Real Estate Company. “The document provides building owners and managers the model and language to write their commitment to sustainable building practices into their leases.”

The green lease guide covers all aspects of a standard lease agreement, such as models for prime lease agreements, guaranty of lease, and form subleases. In addition, the guide delineates energy efficient practices such as recycling and waste management, maintenance and repairs, tenant improvements and contractor rules and regulations.
For more information about BOMA’s Green Lease Guide visit The BOMA Store at shop.boma.org.

Founded in 1907, the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International is an international federation of more than 100 local associations and affiliated organizations. The 17,000-plus members of BOMA International own or manage more than 9 billion square feet of commercial properties in North America and abroad. BOMA’s mission is to enhance the human, intellectual and physical assets of the commercial real estate industry through advocacy, education, research, standards and information. On the Web at www.boma.org.