Green Building Councils: Policy Instruments or Fashion

This paper deals with the question whether the Green Building Councils that have been founded in many countries of the world serve an economic purpose or are just fashionable at the moment. From a theoretical point of view we will investigate the economic environment of green building initiatives, the roles that developers, investors, policy makers and other actors play in this context. Then, based on existing economic literature, we will identify potential needs for policy initiatives like green building councils. Finally, we will contrast these hypotheses with the results of a survey among green building councils on order to see whether or not they engage in the expected types of activities.