Notebook: Green Advocates Hopeful Amid Recession

BOSTON-It’s tough to feel good about the commercial real estate market right now. But one would be pressed this week at the US Green Building Council’s annual Greenbuild conference here to find a whole lot of doom and gloom.

For one thing, the Boston Convention Center was packed for most of the week, with its enormous exhibit hall, filled with people. USGBC reports that some 25,230 attendees showed up for the conference.

There were far too many sessions for a single reporter to attend, but here are a few things of note that were mentioned:

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• Brokerage firms seem to be taking sustainability seriously. During a press conference sponsored by GlobeSt.com, USGBC and the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), Richard Purtell, BOMA’s chairman and portfolio manager at Grubb & Ellis, noted that education on green building practices is a high priority at his firm.

  “It is a vital part of what we’re doing,” he said, also noting that there is a growing demand for green leases in the industry. BOMA has released a green leasing guide to deal with the trend.