Roland Füss

Roland Füss is Professor of Real Estate Finance and Member of the Board of the Swiss Institute for Banking and Finance and of the School of Finance at the University of St.Gallen. Prior to joining the University, Professor Füss was a faculty member of the EBS Business School. He has published extensively in his area of expertise and sits on the editorial boards of several journals.

Expertise

Professor Füss is investigating the impact of carbon emissions on real estate rents and values. To tackle this key topic, he employs a novel measure of carbon emissions related to both the sustainability and the energy efficiency of buildings. After accounting for a building's state as well as its location, empirical results show that apartments in low-carbon buildings have higher net rents than those that emit more carbon emissions. From a tenant's perspective, this higher willingness-to pay stems from additional cost savings, related, for example, to heating, when living in a sustainable property. Further estimates show that this higher willingness-to-pay for low-carbon housing is not decisively driven by a higher preference for living in an environmentally friendly apartment. From an investor's perspective, data shows that the market value of carbon neutral properties is approximately 4 percent higher than that of seemingly identical carbon emitting properties, a difference that is related to the higher investment costs. Finally, from a policy perspective these findings suggest that market intervention mechanisms such as CO2 taxes and subsidies are key instruments for supporting the transition toward a greener real estate market.