Carbon footprint, green label buildings and legitimation strategies in the real estate industry : symbolism or behavior?

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Amsterdam Business School

Carbon footprint, Green label buildings and legitimation strategies

in the Real Estate industry

Symbolism or behavior?

Name: Chaya Rampersad Student number: 10135596 Date: 6 January 2015 Word count: 11.146

Supervisor: ir. drs. A.C.M. de Bakker

MSc Accountancy & Control, specialization Control

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by student Chaya Rampersad who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Preface

This Master thesis is the end of my study Accountancy & Control, specialization Control at the University of Amsterdam. In 2011 I started the premaster Accounting & Control after I finished my HBO bachelor study Real Estate at the High school of Amsterdam. I really enjoyed studying at the University of Amsterdam and I am happy that I am completing the last phase of my Master degree.

The first preparations for my Master thesis started in September 2014. During the research seminar I had the idea to combine the sustainability course with my real estate background for an interesting topic. I started with some struggles because I had no idea how I was supposed to do my research. During the months November until now, I challenged myself to investigate sustainability practices within the real estate industry.

My special thanks goes out to my tutor Mr. Toon de Bakker for his support and his good advices during this process. With his input, knowledge and kind words he made me enjoy these months of hard work. After graduating I will look back with a warm feeling to my study years at the University of Amsterdam. I would also like to thank my parents, friends and colleagues for their support.

Amsterdam, January 2015 Chaya Rampersad

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Abstract

In academic literature, environmental and sustainability issues are becoming more important. Carbon footprints are one of the most instant concerns because they are the cause of climate change. The real estate industry in the U.S. accounts for 30 to 40 percent on all atmospheric emissions. Green label buildings are buildings with an ‘A’ energy label, which means that they are low in energy use. The purpose of this study is to assess whether U.S. commercial real estate firms have changed their carbon footprint and green label building related disclosures. By adopting a legitimacy perspective, the aim is to find out whether pragmatic or moral legitimacy strategies dominate the disclosures. Whether these disclosures reflect to a symbolism or actual behavior can be determined with these findings.

A content analysis of printed annual and sustainability reports of the U.S. largest listed commercial real estate firms is undertaken to compare carbon footprint and green label building related disclosures in 2008 and 2013. The nature and extent of the disclosures and the use of headers to draw attention on these topics are reported for the real estate industry in the U.S. After the analysis, it became clear that the commercial real estate firms are increasing their disclosures about carbon footprint and green label building related topics and that they use more headers in their reports to attract the attention of the readers. However the disclosure rates increased significantly, their nature appears to be of a symbolic management approach, consistent with pragmatic legitimacy strategies. For now, commercial real estate firms seem to put more effort in creating better reputation than taking sufficient actions to reduce their corporate carbon footprint or to promote and use green label buildings.

Laws and regulations on behavioral actions regarding lowering the corporate carbon footprint and engage more in green label buildings could be required to increase behavioral disclosures. This have to be further researched.

This investigation carried out as a content analysis in the real estate industry is one of the first in the accounting literature. Due to a limited availability of data, the sample size is very small. Key words: Carbon footprint, Green label buildings, Environmental disclosure, Legitimacy, Disclosure,

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1 Introduction

In 2011, a study conducted by Sue Hrasky revealed that in the financial industry, behavioral disclosure about carbon footprint related issues has declined significantly from 50 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2008 while symbolic disclosure increased significantly from 19 percent in 2005 to 33 percent in 2008. This study was done among the top fifty largest listed Australian companies. A content analysis of annual reports and sustainability reports showed that Australian companies in the financial industry report in a more symbolic way about their carbon footprint than non-financials (Hrasky, 2011).

There is a growing demand for sustainability reporting and sustainable behavior (Hart, 1995). It is becoming a standard instead of an exception. Despite this progress, Bugl et al, (2009) state that financial stakeholders who are investing in sustainable property funds are more economic oriented and therefore care most about their financial results.

In the real estate industry, sustainability reporting is becoming more important, where awareness and implementation of sustainability initiatives and practices in the commercial real estate industry has increased during the last years (Harrison and Seiler, 2011). Commercial Real Estate services firm JonesLang LaSalle states in its sustainability report of 2012 that “they see sustainability as an opportunity to differentiate themselves from competitors by providing innovative services and maintaining credibility by implementing the same best practices for themselves”. Their Global Sustainability Commitment program defines their objectives relating to five key issues: Energy and resources, client service excellence, green buildings, community and supply chain and workplace/well-being.

Over the last years, commercial real estate firms expanded their annual reports with pictures and photographs about environmental issues to increase or better their corporate image. Hrasky (2012) concluded that the use of pictures and photographs in annual reports are used as a status tool, to show the readers of the annual report that the firm is concerned. Although the firm might be actually concerned about environmental issues, they are not all willing or able to do something about it. If this is the case, the disclosures are part of their legitimacy strategy and the firm is using the disclosures symbolically to show that they care, but without doing anything or taking specific actions. To identify the difference between symbolic and behavioral disclosures, Hrasky (2011) developed a framework for her investigation in Australia.

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From a property’s market value perspective, Warren-Myers (2013) states that in the real estate industry, valuers are the barrier to identify the market value of sustainability. Because of a lack of knowledge, sustainability is not taken into account most of the time. Although there is a very strong demand, and a very strong will, real estate professionals seemed not enough experienced yet.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether sustainability disclosures within real estate firms are part of their legitimacy strategy or if it appears to be of symbolic or actual behavior. Therefore the research question is as follows:

“Are disclosures related to carbon footprint and green label buildings in annual and sustainability reports from commercial real estate firms consistent with a symbolic management or a behavioral management approach to legitimation?”

To answer this question, Hrasky’s (2011) framework will be used to determine whether disclosures are of a symbolic or behavioral management approach.

By a content analysis of annual and sustainability reports a comparison is going to be made of carbon footprint related and green label building related disclosures between 2008 and 2013. The reason for this scope is because it would be a good further research point as the study of Hrasky (2011) took place between 2005 and 2008.

This study will be relevant for the accounting field because real estate is a small industry within the financial industry or the ‘less carbon intensive sector’, which has not been researched very often in the accounting literature. A deviation has been made quite some time between the financial industry and the industrial sector. It would be interesting for the accounting field to gain more knowledge about other industries in particularly as well.

This study is conducted as a content analysis, which means that there will be searched for a change in the annual and sustainability reports regarding carbon footprint and green label disclosures. This investigation follows the study of Hrasky (2011) very closely and the same method and structure is used for this industry with new hand collected data. A further investigation suggestion could be done from a stakeholders perspective or by case studies, and go more in detail how real estate firms create their legitimacy and how they attend to keep it or not. This thesis would be a good starting point for these further research suggestions in this specific area. The outline of this paper is organized as follows: chapter 2 reviews Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature and outline motives for CSR practices, and legitimacy

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strategies will be examined. The 3rd_{chapter will outline the research question and hypotheses,} followed by the research method in the 4th_{chapter and the results in the 5}th_{with in the 6}th_the conclusions.

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2 Literature review

Sustainability is a definition which can have different interpretations.

One of the most well-known definitions came from the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission). They published their report in 1987 and presented a new concept of sustainability: “sustainable development.” The Brundtland Commission’s report defined this concept as follows: “development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The key message of this definition is that the influence of economic activities of individuals and companies on the environment should be minimized to ensure the needs of future generations, which means that natural nonrenewable resources will last longer if current generations take their environmental responsibility.

Hrasky (2011) investigated to what extent companies take their responsibility in their annual statements about carbon footprint related information. The carbon footprint of a company is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of corporate activities. Hrasky’s (2011) sample consisted of the top 50 largest Australian companies in the financial sector and in the non-financial sector, which she classified as ‘Carbon intensive firms’ and ‘Less carbon intensive firms’. Carbon intensive firms are in this content referring to the manufacturing sector, but also utility, industrial and transport industries are also classified as carbon intensive firms. Less carbon intensive firms are in this content referring to the financial sector, but also healthcare, telecommunication and consumer industries are also classified as less carbon intensive firms.

By a content analysis of annual statements and sustainability reports between 2005 and 2008 which she coded manually, she concluded that all firms had carbon footprint disclosures in their annual statements. However, the natures of their disclosures were significantly different. It appears that carbon intensive firms attend to disclose more substantively and the less carbon intensive firms symbolic. This will be further explained in section 2.2.3.

This literature research has focused on commercial real estate firms and property investors who invest in commercial real estate. Commercial real estate or commercial properties are buildings or land which have the intension to generate profit from capital gains or rental income. Commercial real estate includes office buildings, industrial property, medical centers, hotels, malls, retail stores, farm land, multifamily housing buildings, warehouses, garages and residential property containing more than a certain number of units.

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2.1 CSR disclosure in the real estate industry

The real estate industry can be qualified both as carbon intensive or less carbon intensive depending on the nature of the firm. Construction companies deal with heavy materials, transport and chemicals while property advisory or property investment companies can be classified as less carbon intensive as their core proceedings took place in an office building. In this literature review, the focus lies on less carbon intensive real estate firms.

According to Putrevu et al. (2012), companies are standing under increasing pressure from their stakeholders to be and act socially and environmentally responsible. This statement can be substantiated by the finding of Brown and Dacin (1997) but also by Mohr and Webb (2005) who both concluded that the voluntarily socially responsible behaviors from firms can lead to long term benefits for themselves. Because of this, CSR is increasingly valuable to stakeholders. The rise of investments in social funds indicates that investors also value firms that engage in CSR (Putrevu et al. 2012). The importance of CSR evolves over time and it is likely that CSR will become increasingly important, however the reason why companies are embracing CSR programs is considered a strategy issue (McWilliams et al. 2011). But what exactly is CSR? A CSR definition by Bowen (1953) states: “ Being the obligations of business people to develop policies, decisions and actions based on values and benefits to society”. These days, CSR has many other definitions and is also understood to relate to an obligation on firms to be and to act responsible for the environment and their stakeholders as a manner that goes beyond financial and legal goals (Huang, 2010).

Within the real estate industry, there are several terms which contributes to CSR. In sustainability reports from real estate firms, terms as ‘Green Buildings’, ‘Carbon emissions’, ‘Certifications’ and more are frequently addressed. ‘LEED’ stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, which is a green label certification program of an independent third party that recognizes best in class strategies and practices and is developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org). ‘BREEAM’ stands for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method and was also developed by a third party in the U.K. by Building Research Establishment. BREEAM is a standard for sustainable buildings and assess the sustainability of buildings at three levels: Building, Exploitation and Usage (www.breeam.org). The ENERGY STAR program was established by the U.S. Environmental protection Agency (EPA) in 1992, under the authority of the Clean Air Act Section 103g. Section 103g of the Clean Air Act directs the Administrator to "conduct a basic engineering research and technology program to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate non–regulatory strategies and technologies for reducing air pollution"

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(www.epa.gov). An additional benefit to green label buildings is also visible in productivity levels of employees. Miller et al. (2009) found out from survey evidence in the U.S. that employees who are working in green buildings take on average almost three sick days less per year compared to employees who are not working in green buildings. On a yearly base, this leads to a direct productivity gain of more than 1 percent with no other changes in operations.

According to the framework of Bansal and Roth (2000) there are four pillars that influences environmental decision making about office building lease decisions. The first pillar is the profitability of occupying an office building which has a green label (Eichholtz et al, 2009). Green buildings use on average 30 percent less energy compared to buildings without a green label. Harrison and Seiler (2011) investigated whether rental premiums accrue to environmentally certified class ‘A’ office buildings and to what extent such premiums vary with the political ideology of the local market area in the U.S. The outcome of this research is that there are higher rents and lower vacancy rates for green office buildings compared to non-certified office buildings. In addition to this finding, significant differences have been found in the political influence on the green premiums. Democratic countries exhibit an average rental premium of 6 percent while republican countries exhibit less than 2 percent. The second pillar is that a green corporate headquarter may act as a signal to stakeholders and customers that the firm has a long term commitment to CSR. The effect of reputation may cause indirect economic benefits, therefore Miles and Covin (2000) claim that because of this improved reputation, new employees may be attracted and retained and spread positive signs about the firm. The third pillar is the voluntarily acceptance of the highest legal environmental standard. By doing this, firms can anticipate future legislation and avoid risks of costly litigation in the future (Kassinis and Vafeas, 2002). The fourth pillar goes out from a select group of potential tenants who want to ‘do the right thing’ (Wood, 1991).

Mohr and Sarin (2009) suggest that CSR is used as a marketing tool. Firms have a certain responsibility to serve society’s needs and marketeers should link this responsibility to economic success and social justice. Because awareness of social issues has increased, customers have become socially sensitive to contribute to social activities (Maignan, 2001). Marketing concepts are broadened by marketeers because of this phenomenon (Ferrell et al. 2010).

Luo and Bhattacharya (2006) propose that CSR is a driver of customer satisfaction and profitability.

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Within real estate firms, there can be several reasons to adopt CSR in their daily operations or in their disclosures as explained above. Warren-Meyers (2013) did a research about the value of sustainability and to what extend they are taken into account within a specific group of real estate professionals: valuers. Real estate valuers are assessing the monetary worth of different kind of properties. Nowadays there are different kind of tools to determine sustainability indicators as the carbon footprint and the energy label of buildings. An interesting finding from Warren-Meyers (2013) who conducted this study in Australia by an online survey, is that the valuers do not consider themselves as a barrier between sustainability and a property’s market value. The results showed that they might misjudge sustainability in valuations which means that some real estate professionals, in this case valuers, are not experienced enough to accurately include sustainability in their assessment. The major reason for this phenomenon is the level of experience.

2.2 Legitimacy theory, symbolic and behavioral CSR disclosure

Organizations are looking for congruence between social values associated with their activities and norms of acceptable behavior in the social system of which they are part (Dowling, 1975). Dowling did research on organizational legitimacy in 1975 and provided a framework for the analysis of organizational legitimacy.

Legitimacy theory explains that firms seek to ensure that they are perceived as operating within the norms and values of the society, which means that their activities are perceived as being legitimate. There are several definitions for legitimacy. One of these definitions come from Suchman (1995) “Legitimacy is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions.”

“Legitimacy is functioning as a social contract with society and is essential for the survival of an organization. Corporate Legitimacy explains how firms interact with their natural environment, while Organizational legitimacy explains how certain actions of an organizations are appropriate and accepted in society” (Suchman, 1995).

Organizations will take actions which will ensure their legitimacy. Gathering legitimacy usually occurs at the institutional level of organizations where the priority lies on legitimating the organization in the social system of which it is a part (Dowling, 1975). Dowling also states that legitimacy is essential for the survival of the organization. Legitimacy is therefore determined by the way of operation and the outcome as well as by the goals or activities of the organization. It

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is seen as a dynamic constraint which changes because communities expectations change and therefore organizations must also adapt. Lindblom (1994) found out that in the accounting field, annual reports are used to legitimate the existence of the company because organizations can draw attention to their strengths and accomplishments while they sometimes neglect information regarding negative implications or accidents.

2.2.1 Legitimacy categories

Suchman (1995) identifies three types of legitimacy with one or more sub strategies:  Pragmatic Legitimacy  Dispositional Legitimacy  Exchange Legitimacy  Influence Legitimacy  Moral Legitimacy  Procedural Legitimacy  Consequential Legitimacy  Structural Legitimacy  Personal Legitimacy  Cognitive Legitimacy

Pragmatic legitimacy and moral legitimacy involves communication towards the audience of the organization and cognitive legitimacy is seen as a result of gaining a position within social models and structures that provides comprehensibility and taken-for-granted status and is a combination of moral and pragmatic legitimacy.

Pragmatic legitimacy can be divided in the three subcategories dispositional, exchange and influence legitimacy. Moral legitimacy can be divided in the subcategories consequential, procedural, structural and personal legitimacy (Suchman, 1995).

Pragmatic legitimacy involves self-interested behavior directly towards their audience. One variant of pragmatic legitimacy is dispositional legitimacy, where firms want to show to the outside world that they are trustworthy and honest. Exchange legitimacy is based on an evaluation of the expected value of specific organizational contribution. If a firm has an influence legitimacy strategy, the constituents supports the firm because they see it as being responsive to their broader interest instead of believing that they provide favorable exchanges. When a firm is associated with awards, stakeholders will consider these firms more trustworthy

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than firms without awards or recognitions. According to Hrasky (2011) the reason of practicing dispositional legitimacy is consistent with a symbolic management approach.

Some examples are CEO letters to shareholders, images and photographs in annual reports and disclosures. These tools are associated with corporate reputation and show a good practice on paper (Geppert and Lawrence, 2008).

Moral legitimacy is acquired when actual behavior is involved. It reflects a positive normative evaluation of the firm and its activities. It stands on judgments about whether the activities of the firm is the ‘right thing to do’. Consequential legitimacy is acquired with accomplishments of the firm. Procedural legitimacy requires an extra step to show the procedures which are used to achieve these accomplishments. Another type of moral legitimacy is termed as structural. In this case the stakeholders see the firm as valuable of support because it’s characteristics. The last type of moral legitimacy is personal legitimacy. Personal legitimacy tends to be relatively extraordinary. The pursuit of moral legitimacy requires a behavioral management to disclosure (Hrasky, 2011).

2.2.2 Legitimacy strategies

Lindblom (1994) developed four Legitimacy strategies to explain corporate behavior:  Inform and educate relevant publics about actual changes in performance or activities  Change perceptions of relevant publics about performance

 Manipulate perceptions by deflecting attention from the issue of concern  Change external expectations of performance

The first two strategies are about making stakeholders aware of the firm’s performance and the reason for changes in their operations. The first strategy brings activities and performance more in line with the expectations and he values of the society. The second strategy uses disclosures in corporate reports to (falsely) indicate that the activities and performances of the firm has changed while they are not changing their actual behavior. By doing this, legitimacy will be captured and stakeholders will understand the firm’s thoughts.

The last two strategies are meant to capture legitimacy by slightly misleading stakeholders. The third strategy uses emotional symbols where they are looking to demonstrate how the firm has fulfilled the expectations of the society in other focus areas of their activities to deflect the attention from the issue of concern. The fourth strategy seeks to change the external expectation

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by demonstrating that the specific societal expectation is unreasonable. By moving the focus from negative publicity to new activities or other positive events, stakeholders’ attention will be kept.

According to Dowling and Pfeiffer (1975), identification with symbols or institutions are a strong base of legitimacy for a company because this stands in relationship with their image. Firms are very sensitive for media attention and seem to react on situations which might affect their legitimacy in a negative way (Deegan et. al. 2002).

Commercial Real Estate in the U.S. accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the atmospheric emissions, which makes it more important that they reduce their impact, but they are still underrepresented in their ability to impact sustainability performance (Temmink, 2010).

Porter and Kramer (2006) argue that CSR has evolved around for different arguments namely “moral obligation”, “license to operate”, “sustainability” and “reputation”. The focus lies on reputation. It is believed that CSR commitments and achievements will help to improve a company’s image and make their identity stronger, while sustainability looks to emphasize environmental and community commitment.

2.2.3 Symbolic and behavioral management approach

There are different ways in which firms can disclose about their corporate strategies and their sustainability program. Two important approaches stated by Kim et al. (2007) are:

 Symbolic Management approach  Behavioral Management approach

Kim et al. (2007) describe the positive as a behavioral management approach and the negative as a symbolic management approach. In general, corporate management usually believes that media expenses will establish corporate reputation and increase financial performances. Kim et al. (2007) studied the relative effectiveness of symbolic management and behavioral management in building reputation and their impact on past financial performance.

With a symbolic management approach, a company believes that positive media exposure will result in a good reputation of the company and that negative publicity will lead to a negative reputation. Kim et al. (2007) describes a symbolic management approach as: “the attempt to manage reputation by managing the production and distribution of the symbols”. The most important predictor for a symbolic reputation is impression management. Impression

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management is the effort the management is taking to disperse favorable impressions among the media and by increasing positive media contents.

A behavioral management approach to build a corporate reputation considers a corporate communication department. This department should function as a stakeholder management function which identifies strategic constituencies, collects strategic input, provide strategic input to decision makers and build on quality and long lasting relationships by managing communication processes. Post et al., (2002) state that “the behavioral management approach asserts that the success of a corporation depends on its ability to respond to stakeholder interest and concerns”. The firms that have a behavioral management approach believes that their good reputation is dependent on their corporate behavior. A study of Gilley et al. (2000) found evidence that there is a positive relationship between environmental initiatives and firm performance. Which indirectly means that firms that put efforts in addressing environmental protection, building their corporate reputation. For symbolic reputation, however, this finding that environmental performance should have influence on behavioral reputation, does not hold. The results of this study showed that neither direct nor indirect effects of a symbolic reputation affect corporate profitability. The results also showed that the higher the level of performance reputation, the higher the corporate profitability usually is. More approaches are needed to build an overall corporate image. How Hammond and Slocum (1996) say that profitability influences the reputation, Brown and Perry (1994) claim that it would be logical to suggest that firms who have a better financial performance would generate a more favorable reputation.

There seems to be a gap between sustainability disclosure and actual engagement or behavior which will be addressed in the next section.

2.2.3 Legitimacy gap

The gap between sustainability disclosure and actual engagement or behavior is qualified as a ‘Legitimacy gap’. This occurs when society expects a certain behavior of a firm which does not meet these expectations.

An example of a legitimacy gap which has occurred was the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the 20th of April 2010. Because of this major oil disaster, stakeholders lost their trust in BP. To regain trust from its stakeholders, BP made a special announcement in its sustainability report and repaired its legitimacy gap. BP responded as follows: “We have acted to take responsibility for the clean-up, working under the direction of the federal government to respond swiftly to compensate people affected by the impact of the accident, to look after the health, safety and

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welfare of the large number of residents and people who helped respond to the spill, and to support the economic recovery of the Gulf Coast’s tourism and seafood industries impacted by the spill. We have conducted studies with federal and state natural resource trustees to identify and define the injury to natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico”.

Figure I. Legitimacy gap (O’Donnovan, 2002)

Figure I illustrates the above of the perspective that can threat potential legitimacy from a firm’s negative association with an issue or event. The X in Figure 1 stands for the congruence between corporate actions and activities and the society’s expectations of the firm and its activities. These are based on the social values an norms of the society. Area Y and Z represents the incongruence between the actions of the firm and the desired actions of society. Therefore these areas represent the legitimacy gaps and the X represents the legitimate area.

According to Suchman (1995) repairing legitimacy suggests that legitimation strategies tend to be reactive responses to unforeseen crises. O’Donnovan (p.350, 2002) states:

“Repairing legitimacy has been related to different levels of crisis management (Davidson, 1991; Elsbach and Sutton, 1992). The task of repairing legitimacy is, in some ways, similar to gaining legitimacy. If a crisis is evolving proactive strategies may need to be adopted, as has been the case for the tobacco industry during the past two decades (Pava and Krausz, 1997). Generally, however, the main difference is that strategies for repairing legitimacy are reactive, usually to an unforeseen and immediate crisis, whereas techniques to gain legitimacy are usually ex-ante, proactive and normally not related to crisis.”

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2.3 Expectations for the real estate industry

Legitimacy theory showed three main categories (Suchman, 1995), pragmatic, moral and cognitive.

According to the literature, most real estate firms seem to value their reputation and take their responsibility to report about CSR related information. Rating systems raised to determine the extent of sustainable buildings and stakeholders require more information about future perspectives. Although financial motives for CSR disclosures are very clear, it is still unclear to what extent the rest of the content is symbolic or behavioral. The framework of Hrasky (2011) will be used to make a distinction between symbolic and behavioral management.

The framework that Hrasky (2011) developed with six disclosure categories and two other categories was used to capture these disclosures that were reflective of a symbolic or behavioral management approach. The coding categories were derived inductively from the content analysis to capture differences in the nature of the disclosures.

Disclosure type

Description Exemplifying disclosure

Normative statement

Statements espousing commitment to and

recognition of the importance of carbon footprints, global warming and climate change but not specific action or outcome

We believe it is important for Australia to establish a long-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal and to map a path to achieve it. Climate change and resource scarcity are issues that require us to evolve our business model to meet our responsibilities.

Aspirational target

Articulation of targets or objectives to be achieved in the future without associated action

Our ultimate goal is to have no carbon

emissions released to the atmosphere. We have set targets for paper use, recycling facilities and greenhouse gas emissions

Awards/ recognition

Statements indicating external recognition of positive efforts pertinent to carbon footprints, global warming and climate change

We were included in the 2004 Climate Leadership Index comprising the 50 ‘best-in-class” responses

Internal activities

Statements about involvement in activities relevant to carbon footprints, global warming and climate change

Where possible we install electricity generators that use the waste gas as fuel. Electricity produced in this way actually reduces

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plant that we opened in September will generate approximately six megawatts of electricity per hour and reduce greenhouse gas emission by 250,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

External activities

Statements about involvement in activities relevant to carbon footprints, global warming and climate change that are

initiatives developed with partners or projects external to the organization

Since becoming a member of the Greenhouse Challenge Program one division has

completed a range of efficiency improvement projects resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions of more than one million tonnes per annum. To support efforts to research the impacts of climate change we have partnered with the Earth Watch Institute to offer an opportunity for our co-workers to join an international conservation research project. Assisting

others

Statements about actions taken to help others to reduce their carbon footprint

We have developed a range of products so customers have a choice about their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions reduction. All colleagues who are allocated a car space for non-company vehicles are required to offset their annual greenhouse gas emissions through a subscription to

GreenFleet Descriptive Statements of fact about the

company and or its operations but which do not describe specific action taken to reduce environmental impact

The average CO2 emissions from our vehicle fleet is 9.2CO2e per vehicle. In 2008 32 per cent of greenhouse gases were CO2 and 68 percent N2O.

Other General statements, not

company specific related to carbon footprints, global warming and climate change

Tonne for tonne, methane gas produced by landfills and other activities has a global warming potential 21 times higher than carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide equivalent is the basis of comparing the warming effect of

greenhouse gases. Table A. Hrasky Framework (Hrasky, 2011)

The first three categories reflect of a symbolic management approach according to Hrasky’s (2011) framework. The normative statement is for showing concern about relevant issues but not about a specific action that is going to take place. The aspirational target is for firms that

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reported about aspirational targets or objectives, but without specific actions. Awards/recognition is a category for firms that reported on their awards that they received for carbon footprint related issues, global warming and climate change. These three categories are derived from the total disclosures that were made by firms each year. The last three categories reflect of a behavioral management approach according to the framework. Internal and external activities consisted about statements where specific actions haves been taken to achieve carbon footprint related goals. The last disclosure type is about actions taken to help other companies and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint. These three categories are derived from the total disclosures that were made by firms each year. The two other categories were to capture descriptive statements and facts about the company but without further actions. Another category was developed to collect statements that do not fit into the other categories. This contains general statements about global warming or climate change, but not directly related to the firm or to their activities concerning these topics.

The literature also shows that sustainability within the real estate industry is also not very well known, and because a lack of knowledge, sustainability is not always taken into account in valuation assessments. The interest of disclosure in general in the real estate industry has increased and probably in a few years, real estate professionals will become more experienced with sustainability.

This research will show that the extent of disclosure in the real estate industry has increased and that they give more information about their carbon footprint and green label buildings. Because of the increase in interest, the expectation arise that disclosure rates in annual and sustainability reports in 2013 increased compared to 2008. It is interesting to find out whether their disclosures are of a symbolic or behavioral management approach.

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3 Hypotheses development

Interest in the real estate industry and the study of Hrasky (2011) triggered to do a similar research about behavioral versus symbolic disclosure about environmental topics in their annual and sustainability reports. Firms are expected to report and respond to concerns about carbon footprint related issues. Not only for their identity, but because of their need for legitimation. (Hrasky, 2011). In the U.S. commercial real estate industry CSR is important and valuable which became clear from the available literature on this topic. But little is known about carbon footprint related actions and disclosure strategies in commercial real estate firms in the U.S. It is also not clear whether communication strategies reflect constructive action or whether these strategies serve to better corporate identity. The disclosed information might result from symbolic management motivations without any actions. Consistent with legitimacy theory, pragmatic and moral legitimation strategies, the following research question is developed.

RQ: “Are disclosures related to carbon footprint and green label buildings in annual and sustainability reports from commercial real estate firms consistent with a symbolic management or a behavioral management approach to legitimation?”

The population of this investigation consists of 30 listed commercial real estate firms in the U.S. All of these firms have published their annual reports and sustainability reports on their website. Although there are several ideas about the nature of their disclosure, related to the legitimacy theory, three hypotheses were developed to answer the research question.

As addressed in section 2.2 commercial real estate firms are increasingly interested in CSR in general. Commercial real estate in the U.S. accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the atmospheric emissions according to Temmink (2010). Because of their will to get more involved in CSR practices to capture legitimacy, the expectation for an increase in disclosures will lead to the first hypothesis:

H1: Real estate firms are increasing their specific disclosures related to issues associated with the corporate carbon footprint in 2013 compared to 2008

Miller et al. (2009) studied the influence of green label buildings on employees in the U.S. and concluded that employees who are working in green label buildings take less sick days per year which leads to a direct productivity gain of more than one percent per year. As independent third parties like LEED and BREEAM rise to award the best practices of real estate firms, the

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expectation will be that these firms will increase these topics in their reporting to capture their legitimacy. Therefore the second hypothesis is as follows:

H2: Real estate firms are increasing their specific disclosures related to green label buildings in 2013 compared to 2008

Hrasky (2011) investigated symbolic and behavioral management disclosures in Australia in the financial and industrial sector. She revealed that the symbolic disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy increased and the behavioral disclosures consistent with moral legitimacy decreased. However the amount of sustainability reports increased, the disclosures in the reports were mostly symbolic. In this sample of thirty commercial real estate firms, none of them had a sustainability report in 2008 while eleven of the thirty firms published a sustainability report in 2013. Considering the finding of Hrasky (2011) that an increase in quantity does not mean an increase in quality, the third hypothesis is as follows:

H3: Real estate firms have more symbolic disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy in their annual reports and sustainability reports than behavioral disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy in 2013 compared to 2008

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4 Research method

The research question and hypotheses are assessed through a content analysis of environmental disclosures made by the highest ranked thirty listed real estate companies in the Fortune500 list, Forbes magazine list and the list of annualreports.com in their annual and sustainability reports. Two lists were used because one list was not enough to collect all the needed data for the investigation. The aim was to find at least fifty commercial real estate firms in the U.S. with published annual reports of 2008 and 2013 as the study of Hrasky (2011) also had fifty listed firms.

4.1 Data gathering

As both the ranking lists consist of companies from all sectors, after filtering out the commercial real estate firms from the Fortune 500 list, only thirteen annual reports remained. First the websites of the companies are visited to look for published annual and/or sustainability reports. From the top thirty of commercial real estate firms, one of the firms had no sufficient data available. Annual reports from 2008 were not available for download and therefore, one data set was incomplete. To prevent errors in the investigation, this company from the Fortune 500 list did not join the sample of thirty commercial real estate firms, so it became twelve annual reports instead of thirteen.

Therefore to collect more annual reports of listed commercial real estate firms in the U.S. the comparable Forbes magazine was used to complement the gap and provided another eight firms. To gather more data, annualreports.com was used to find more annual reports of U.S. commercial real estate firms as both sources did not provide enough annual reports. Unfortunately, only ten U.S. commercial real estate firms published their annual reports from 2008 and 2013 on the annualreports.com website. Therefore the population is relatively small with thirty U.S. commercial real estate firms.

The U.S. Fortune 500 list is an annual list which is compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies incur. The U.S. Forbes magazine is well known for its lists and rankings, including the list of U.S. most fortunate individuals and rankings of world’s top companies. These specific two sources were selected because these lists are similar to each other and are internationally known and published. The companies in these lists are U.S. companies. So the number of thirty firms is rather randomly grown. The aim was to have at least 100 reports for this investigation and therefore,

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fifty firms would have been sufficient in a period of two years 2008 and 2013. Due to limited availability of data, the sample size is therefore small.

4.2 Content analysis

The aim is to seek for an increase in disclosure rates (the relative amount spent on disclosures) over time and to assess whether they are of a symbolic or behavioral management approach. To answer the research question, the three hypotheses will be tested through a content analysis of the regarding years 2008 and 2013. To test the hypothesis, eleven sustainability reports and sixty annual reports are analyzed on their context and meaning. Within the annual reports, the mandated financial statements and the associated notes, the statutory, formulaic directors report and the corporate governance section are not included in the content analysis. The content analysis is going to be applied only to the voluntary disclosure section of the annual reports. Only 36 percent of the sample provided at least one sustainability report in the period of 2008 and 2013. From this period, sixty annual reports and thirteen sustainability reports have been collected of which two sustainability reports were from 2011 or 2012. Therefore, those sustainability reports are not taken into account, as only the reports of 2013 and 2008 are part of this content analysis. As the number of sustainability reports is relatively small in this sample, approximately 15 percent, the consideration of not analyzing sustainability reports could be made, to make sure that the sample is as consistent as possible. However, because Hrasky (2011) did weigh the sustainability reports in her analysis, and this investigation follows her method as closely as possible, they will be taken into account in the content analysis. Hrasky (2011) concluded in her investigation that the disclosure rates in sustainability reports were higher than the disclosures in the annual reports. However, the difference tends to be driven primarily by increasing symbolic statements.

Although (Hrasky, 2012) investigated the impact of photographs on corporate identity, this will not be taken into account in this analysis. Because the interpretation of photographs can be subjective, bias can occur in the validity of the results. The focus in this research contains environmental disclosures - related to carbon footprints and green label buildings - through printed reports. The content analysis will focus on the quantity of disclosures and their quality; symbolic or behavioral meaning. Websites and newspapers or any other forms of disclosure or (social)media advertisements are not taken into account. With specific terms as “carbon footprints” and “green label buildings” the relative amount of disclosures are measured and collected manually from headings, headlines, sentences and pages within the annual reports and sustainability reports if they are available. For the three hypotheses, therefore a comparison has

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been made whether real estate firms expanded their CSR by determining if they published sustainability reports besides their annual report and if they spend more sentences, pages, headings or headlines on carbon footprint and green label building related topics in 2013 compared to 2008. This is done by manual counting, coding and collecting of data. By counting the number of sentences, pages, headings and headlines in the annual- and sustainability reports from 2008 and 2013, a conclusion can be drawn from these figures whether there has been an increase or decrease in disclosures, measured in quantity. Environmental related terms which are closely related to carbon footprint issues as “Greenhouse Gas” and “Climate change”, and environmental terms which are closely related to green label building issues as “Environment”, “Energy” and “Sustainability” are also taken into account to get a complete view about CSR disclosure within commercial real estate firms for hypothesis one and two. The terms were used to filter sentences from the annual and sustainability reports. Each sentence which contains one or more of the searching terms, was selected manually and coded manually according to the framework from Table A. For each report the terms has been searched, the sentences were collected and coded and the amount of pages spent on these sentences were counted manually even as the amount of headers spent based on these terms. The aim is to identify specific carbon footprint related and green label related disclosures instead of general CSR disclosures. If the purpose of the disclosure is to gain or maintain legitimacy in response to these specific carbon related and green label related concerns, the response should be identifiable with this area of concern.

To answer the research question, Hrasky’s framework (2011) as outlined in Table A will be used to determine whether the disclosed information in the annual and sustainability reports is part of a symbolic legitimacy strategy or a behavioral legitimacy strategy. This will be done by the coding scheme with the eight disclosure types. The codes will determine whether the disclosures are symbolic or behavioral which will answer the third hypothesis.

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5 Results

The average disclosure rates for the categories of disclosures regarding to carbon footprint and green label buildings in annual reports are reported in Table 1 until Table 6. According to these results, none of the three hypotheses should be rejected which will be further explained in the next sections.

Surprisingly, from the thirty commercial real estate companies, no one provided a sustainability report in 2008 besides their annual report, which means that the increase in sustainability reports only could not be tested and measured. That is why two different tests are conducted. One test to determine the increase or decrease in disclosures in the annual reports only, and another test to determine the increase or decrease in disclosures in annual reports and sustainability reports together. In 2013, eleven companies published a sustainability report and an annual report, while the remaining twenty-nine companies only provided an annual report. It is unsurprising that the overall disclosures increased in 2013 compared to 2008. In 2008, seven commercial real estate firms did not have any relevant disclosures in their annual reports. In 2013, only four commercial real estate firms did not have any relevant disclosures in their annual reports.

5.1 Hypotheses 1 and 2

As shown in Table 1 and Table 2, the average disclosure rates in the annual reports between 2008 and 2013 increased, both per report and per page, so the general answer to the question whether real estate firms increased their specific disclosures in their annual and sustainability reports related to carbon footprint and green label buildings is yes.

The first hypotheses which were tested are:

H1: Real estate firms are increasing their specific disclosures related to issues associated with the corporate carbon footprint in 2013 compared to 2008

H2: Real estate firms are increasing their specific disclosures related to green label buildings in 2013 compared to 2008

The Wilcoxon signed ranks test which is used for pairs (annual reports from 2008 and annual reports from 2013) indicated that the Normative statements, Average total symbolic disclosures, Descriptive statements and the Average total disclosures increased significant per report. The significance level for all tests used in this reports is 5 percent, so if P < 0.05 there is significant difference between the results in 2008 and 2013. The increases and decreases per page were not

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significant. The behavioral disclosures in the annual reports decreased in 2013 compared to 2008.

Disclosure type per report per page per report per page

Normative statement 3.43 * 0.62 * 1.77 0.29

Aspirational target 0.47 * 0.07 * 0.67 0.14

Awards/recognition 0.80 * 0.17 * 0.67 0.13

Average total symbolic 4.70 * 0.87 * 3.10 0.56

Internal activities 0.37 * 0.09 * 0.50 0.10

External activities 0.23 * 0.03 * 0.17 0.01

Assisting others 0.00 * 0.00 * 0.03 0.00

Average total behavior 0.60 * 0.12 * 0.70 0.11

Descriptive statements 9.60 * 1.09 * 3.13 0.90

Other 0.17 * 0.02 * 0.30 0.06

Average total disclosure 15.07 * 2.10 * 7.23 1.63

Note: * Difference between 2013 and 2008 is significant at p < 0.05

Table 1 Average disclosure rates for the disclosures of interest in annual reports

2013 average 2008 average

Table 2 shows an increase in the disclosure between 2008 and 2013 both per page and per report from the annual and sustainability reports. Because none of the commercial real estate firms published a sustainability report in 2008, these results are the same as in Table 1. As the disclosures from 2013 does not consist of pairs anymore, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to indicate the significant increases and decreases in disclosures of the annual and sustainability reports together in 2013, compared to the disclosures of 2008 which consisted of disclosures only made in annual reports.

The disclosure rates per page and per report increased significantly in the Normative statements, Awards/recognition, Average total symbolic, Internal activities, Actual total behavior and the Average total disclosures. The firms which produced a sustainability report in 2013 included more disclosures in their sustainability reports than in their annual report. In general, their disclosure rates were significantly higher than those who only provided an annual report. This difference arises by the increase in symbolic disclosures in the annual and sustainability reports in 2013. As shown in Table 2, the symbolic disclosure categories increased the most per report. The disclosure rates per page in Table 1 were not significant, but they are significant as showed in Table 2 where the symbolic disclosure rates almost doubled because of the sustainability reports.

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Normative statement 13.07 * 1.24 * 1.77 0.29

Aspirational target 1.82 * 0.14 * 0.67 0.14

Awards/recognition 2.63 * 0.28 * 0.67 0.13

Average total symbolic 17.54 * 1.66 * 3.10 0.56

Internal activities 1.73 * 0.17 * 0.50 0.10

External activities 0.54 * 0.05 * 0.17 0.10

Assisting others 0.02 * 0.00 * 0.03 0.00

Average total behavior 2.29 * 0.22 * 0.70 0.11

Other 0.17 * 0.02 * 0.30 0.06

Average total disclosure 28.39 * 2.82 * 7.23 1.63

Table 2 Average disclosure rates for the disclosures of interest in annual reports and sustainability

reports

Table 1 and Table 2 showed that the commercial real estate firms with or without sustainability report, increased their total average disclosure rates per report and per page, of which the use of symbolic disclosures increased significantly in 2013 compared to 2008. The average total behavior disclosures increased significantly by report and per page where the sustainability reports were included in Table 2. The increased use of descriptive statements about general disclosures consisted most of the time of general statements about environmental laws and regulations. Among the annual reports, these results were also significant.

According to the results shown in Table 1 and Table 2, the first hypothesis and the second hypothesis are not rejected.

The commercial real estate firms did increase their specific disclosures related to issues associated with the corporate carbon footprint and green label buildings in 2013 compared to 2008. These findings are consistent with the predictions of legitimacy theory as firms in the real estate industry have a growing interest in CSR.

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5.2 Hypothesis 3

Disclosure type per report per page per report per page Symbolc disclosure sentences 4.70 * 0.87 3.10 0.56 Behavioral disclosure sentences 0.60 * 0.12 0.70 0.11

Descriptive statements 9.60 * 1.09 3.13 0.90

Other 0.17 * 0.02 0.30 0.05

Average total disclosure 15.07 * 2.10 7.23 1.63

Table 3 Average disclosure rates for the disclosures of interest in annual reports

The third hypothesis which was tested is:

H3: Real estate firms have more symbolic disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy in their annual reports and sustainability reports than behavioral disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy in 2013 compared to 2008

To test the third hypothesis, the Wilcoxon signed ranks test indicated for the annual reports the amount of significant symbolic and behavioral disclosure sentences per report and per page in 2008 and 2013 which is shown in Table 3. As the disclosures per page in all categories increased except for the Other category, these results were not significant. However, the results per report were significant for the symbolic disclosure sentences, descriptive statements and the average total disclosure sentences. The behavioral disclosure sentences and the other sentences per report decreased.

The Mann-Whitney U test was used to identify significant differences in symbolic and behavioral disclosures in 2008 and 2013 for the annual and sustainability reports as outlined in Table 4. The results from 2008 in Table 4 are the same as the results in Table 3 because no sustainability reports were provided that year. With the significant increased disclosures in 2013 in general, the disclosure rates per category per report in Table 4 were on average four to five times higher than in 2008, except for the Other category. Where the descriptive statements were significant in Table 3, the behavioral disclosure sentences per report and per page are significant instead.

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Disclosure type per report per page per report per page Symbolc disclosure sentences 17.54 * 1.66 * 3.10 0.56 Behavioral disclosure sentences 2.29 * 0.22 * 0.70 0.11

Other 0.17 * 0.02 * 0.30 0.06

Average total disclosure 28.39 * 2.82 * 7.23 1.63

Table 4 Average disclosure rates for the disclosures of interest in annual and sustainability reports

So the general answer to the question if real estate firms have more symbolic disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy in their annual reports and sustainability reports than behavioral disclosures consistent with pragmatic legitimacy in 2013 compared to 2008 is yes. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to identify significant differences in relative disclosures between 2008 and 2013 as outlined in Table 5. To carry out this test, the firms that did not have any disclosures at all were removed from the sample to come out at 100 percent. The disclosures in the annual reports consisted for 31 percent of symbolic disclosures in 2008 and increased to 43 percent in 2013 which is 38 percent more. Behavioral disclosures decreased from almost 7 percent in 2008 to 5 percent in 2013 which is a decrease of 22 percent. General disclosures which are the Descriptive facts and Other categories about environmental company facts decreased in 2013 but represented still over 50 percent of all disclosures. Although the content analysis was only done for textual contents, by reading the reports, it seemed that the use of images increased in 2013 compared to 2008. This explains the increase in symbolic disclosures as the study from Hrasky (2012) showed evidence that the use of pictures and photographs were consistent of a symbolic management approach and that they serve to better corporate identity. The disclosures in the annual reports and sustainability reports consisted for more than 50 percent of symbolic disclosures in 2013 and 31 in 2008 which is a significant increase of 74 percent. The behavioral disclosures increased to 7 percent in 2013 due to the disclosures that were added from the sustainability reports. With the sustainability reports joining the sample, the general disclosures decreased significantly more than in the annual reports only in the Descriptive facts category. Although the differences between 2013 and 2008 were significant for the Annual reports and Sustainability reports category, the difference in results of the disclosure percentages of the Annual reports and Annual reports and Sustainability reports in 2013 were not significant.

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Proportionate disclosure in: 2013 * 2008 Annual reports Symbolic information 43.27 * 31.35 Behavioral information 5.41 * 6.99 Descriptive facts 50.24 * 59.85 Other 1.08 * 1.81 Total 100 * 100

Annual reports and Sustainability reports

Symbolic information 54.41 * 31.35

Behavioral information 7.02 * 6.99

Descriptive facts 37.72 * 59.85

Other 0.85 * 1.81

Total 100 * 100

Notes: Figures shown are percentages.

Table 5 Proportional disclosure by report types

* Difference between 2013 and 2008 is significant at p < 0.05

Table 6 shows that the use of headers increased significantly per report in 2013 compared to 2008. The disclosures of headers per report increased in the Annual and Sustainability reports in 2013 compared to the Annual reports only. This difference is not significant. With the use of headers, direct attention can be drawn from the readers of the reports. Consistent with legitimation , the headers ensure that readers notice the information that is being disclosed about carbon footprint and green label related issues.

Annual reports 1.73 * 0.28 0.87 0.23

Annual and Sustainability reports 2.17 * 0.29 0.87 0.23

Table 6 Use of highlighting devices in reports

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5.3 Concluding remarks

Overall, the results showed that the amount of symbolic disclosures increased in 2013 compared to 2008. Although the results were not all significant, it became clear that the disclosures about carbon footprint and green label buildings are increased. The difference is driven by the sustainability reports in 2013 which consisted mostly of symbolic disclosures.

The above findings mean that the research question can be answered:

RQ: “Are disclosures related to carbon footprint and green label buildings in annual and sustainability reports from commercial real estate firms consistent with a symbolic management or a behavioral management approach to legitimation?”

The figures revealed in this analysis are not surprising but somewhat disappointing that most of the commercial real estate firms does not take specific actions to reduce their carbon footprint or invest in green label buildings and therefore their reporting is of a symbolic management approach. They do report about their achievements and the awards they received for their involvement in actions which refers to the past. These disclosures which shifted from moral to pragmatic legitimacy strategy are underpinned with symbolic statements which are supported by the findings of Geppert and Lawrence, (2008).

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6 Conclusion

According to the results in the previous chapter, the three hypotheses were not rejected. In the following section the conclusions and limitations are outlined and the suggestions for further research.

6.1 Conclusions

The results suggest that firms are making disclosures consistent with legitimation behavior. Over the last years, especially from 2008 until now, increasing concerns about environmental issues specific related to carbon footprint and green label buildings might cause a legitimacy gap. As there is a consistent tendency for commercial real estate firms to increase their disclosure rates about these environmental issues in their annual and sustainability report, they significantly increased their symbolic disclosures. There were also significant increases in highlighting devices such as headers to attract the attention on these disclosures. The U.S. largest listed commercial real estate firms are disclosing more about their carbon footprints and green label buildings and are attempting to draw more attention to these disclosures in their annual and sustainability reports.

Although the increased rates of disclosures are a positive phenomenon, the exploitation of the symbolic disclosures which is part of their pragmatic dispositional legitimacy strategy, is less encouraging. According to Hrasky (2011) voluntary disclosure about actions which are going to be taken could be stimulated by laws and regulations or incentives. Miles and Covin (2000) concluded that the corporate image is most important for commercial real estate firms because of the indirect long term benefits they receive from their good reputation. This finding is supported by McWilliams (2011) which stated that CSR is used as a strategy tool to gain and maintain legitimacy. This explains the increase of symbolic disclosures consistent with a pragmatic legitimacy strategy.

For commercial real estate firms, the nature of symbolic disclosures might arise from their lack of experience and knowledge about sustainable issues (Warren-Meyers, 2013). As the real estate industry in the U.S. accounts for 30 to 40 percent of all atmospheric emissions, they might have a comparative advantage in their reach and ability to stimulate broader constituent groups with which they interact. For example financial institutions or real estate investment trust funds can be rewarded for their responsible behavior by doing business with sustainable and responsible firms. Than there might be a shift towards a behavioral management approach.

Carbon footprint, green label buildings and legitimation strategies in the real estate industry : symbolism or behavior?