BEVERLY HILLS, CA-Sustainable investment and the green building movement took center stage yesterday at the 17th Annual PREA (Pension Real Estate Association) conference, being held this week at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. More than 750 attendees listened to the panel discussion titled, “The Greening of Real Estate,” where the speakers formed a consensus opinion that green buildings will be the norm sooner rather than later.

“[Green building] is not a fad,” said James Thomas of Thomas Properties Group Inc. “All the office buildings being constructed are green. I can't see any new office development going up that's not green.”

Thomas said more than 1,000 buildings are LEED certified today. (According to September data from The US Green Building Council, purveyor of the LEED standard, there are another 7,843 LEED registered projects.) Thomas added that he believes existing office buildings will eventually become green as well as those new developments, but it could take anywhere from five to even 15 years to get there.