Let’s be honest: While green technology is important to many, it isn’t to everybody. Some residents will toss a soda can into the garbage even with a recycle bin less than a foot away.  

So, should you prominently market your community as a green building? Are the expenditures worth the potential gains?

The answer isn’t a direct yes or no. First, consider the market. Residents in places, such as Berkeley, CA or Boulder, CO, locales that are famously environmentally conscious, are more likely to be persuaded to live in a green apartment community than residents in more cosmopolitan areas, like Miami, FL or Chicago, IL.

Recent studies have indicated that the majority of residents will not pay higher rents to live at a green community over a lower-priced community that is otherwise comparable. In fact, according to RentPath data, a mere 0.1 percent of ApartmentGuide.com users filtered for the term “Green Community” over the past year.

That, of course, doesn’t account for prospective renters who were already aware that a particular community is green, but it does suggest that the environmental concept isn’t on the mind of the majority of searchers. However, a community shouldn’t ignore the concept altogether. While a green apartment community might not sway a prospective resident on its own merit, it can act as a tiebreaker.

In that particular case, it means the marketing effort is worth it.

Let’s say Green Community A and Non-Green Community B each list for $2,000. More on-the-fence prospective residents might choose A because of the green features of the community. On the surface, Green Community A doesn’t generate any additional income because the price is the same as the competition, but that extra bargaining chip of being green gives it the competitive edge it needs to secure more residents and generate additional demand.

While it’s a no-brainer to include a community’s green amenities and features on any apartment listing, owner/operators have to wrestle with the notion of whether to conspicuously use them as part of their ramped-up marketing strategies.

One thing to keep in mind when promoting your community as green: People who are passionate about the environment will call you out if you’re not specific about what makes your community green. Some communities might have energy-efficient features but aren’t completely green, so advertising as such could draw criticism (“They said they’re green, but I received a paper bill.”). In other words, rather than calling your community green in your advertising copy, share specific green amenities and features available to residents.

It might seem like splitting hairs, but there is a distinct difference in communities that have implemented certain resource-efficient features, such as programmable thermostats and LED lighting, and those constructed to be LEED certified from the ground up. LEED Certified communities typically are built from materials designed to reduce replacement costs over the life of the building, energy-conserving amenities and health-enhancing concepts.

Of course, this could delve into a nonissue moving forward, as more and more buildings become equipped with green features, such as low-flow showers and toilets, alternative energy sources, and anything else that makes the community more resource-efficient and environmentally responsible.

When extrapolated to the multifamily industry, two questions arise for owner/operators: Is a green building a trump card? Probably not. Does it have potential to positively affect the bottom line? Absolutely.