Large institutional investment firms are factoring the enhanced market value of energy-efficient property into their real estate investment models, the nation’s first study on investment returns from Responsible Property Investments (RPI) has found.

Written by prominent real estate professors Gary Pivo of the University of Arizona and Jeffrey Fisher, the director of the Benecki Center for Real Estate Studies at Indiana University, the study examined the effects of investing in energy-efficient, transit-oriented and urban regeneration office properties in the United States over the past decade.

It used property data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), an association that compiles real estate information from large institutional investors such as JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Prudential and Deutsche Bank.

Like other recent studies, Pivo and Fisher found that energy-efficient properties with the government’s Energy Star label performed better than non-labeled properties. Energy Star properties exhibited 13.5 percent higher market values and 5.9 percent higher net incomes per square foot, a result of 10 percent lower utility costs, 4.8 percent higher rents and 1 percent higher occupancy rates. They also sold at lower cap rates than non-labeled properties.

But Energy Star properties did not appreciate faster than non-labeled properties, nor did they generate better overall returns, indications that their “greater economic productivity was already priced in when they were developed or acquired,” the study said.

Across all three RPI categories, the study found that Responsible Property Investments were no less safe than traditional real estate investments.

“Since RPI can produce social and environmental benefits and fulfill fiduciary duties, it would be economically irrational and ethically unjustifiable to not engage in Responsible Property Investing,” the study concluded.