Sustainability and the financialisation of commercial property: Making prime and non-prime markets

At the same time that the sustainability agenda has gained purchase within the commercial property market, financialisation has also been having an impact. This article argues that this impact has been concentrated in the prime sector of the market and that there is a significant non-prime sector that also deserves attention. Using a new economic sociology framework, it presents an analysis of how sustainability concerns have penetrated both the prime and non-prime commercial property sectors, looking at the construction of the object of market exchange, the modalities of valuation and the role of calculative practices based on classificatory tools. It demonstrates why promoting sustainability is occurring in the financialised prime sector and largely being ignored elsewhere. While showing the value of a new economic sociology framework, it suggests that the claims for creating a disentangled abstract object of exchange are exaggerated where commercial property is concerned.