Warehouse development starts are predicted to drop in the coming months, but demand for sustainable warehouse development is picking up, according to Prologis.
Installed warehouse rooftop solar capacity will double, and EV truck charging capacity will exceed 10 megawatts, the firm said.
Building future-proof facilities can shield logistics companies from future operational risks, including changing regulations, community resistance and volatile fossil fuel-based energy pricing.
But there are some differing opinions regarding timeline. As with anything, it’s not so simple.
According to a recent article by GlobeSt.com, Adam Roth of NAI Hiffman agreed that the focus on sustainability will continue to grow, but its implementation will take more time.
A big plus, however, is that costs for sustainable building and operations are dropping. Expenses associated with sustainability have been a huge roadblock for businesses wanting to gear toward green, but certain incentive programs have the power to turbocharge these longer-term trends. Prologis, for one, has committed to installing one gigawatt of solar by 2025.
Similar trends are already being seen in Europe. Cities, there, with low-emission transportation zones comprise more than 60% of logistics markets as of 2022, up from less than 25% in 2015, based on the report.
Prologis Research leveraged decades of industry experience and proprietary data, as well as unique insights from its approximately 1.2 billion square feet global portfolio and 6.200 customers, to predict non-pandemic trends for 2023.
