Major projects initiated by former President Bill Clinton should propel efforts to retrofit millions of square feet of existing commercial and government buildings with "green" technology. But experts note that multi-tenant buildings may be laggards in this green wave.

Clinton's new Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program, part of the Clinton Climate Initiative launched last year by the nonprofit William J. Clinton Foundation, will provide city governments and private building owners with loans to retrofit buildings with energy-efficient technology, such as upgraded lighting, heating and cooling systems. Energy savings will amount to 20% to 50%, organizers say.

ABN AMRO, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and UBS will put up the $5 billion for the retrofits. Cities and building owners will repay the loans, plus interest, with energy savings generated by the retrofits.

Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Inc, Siemens and Trane will conduct energy audits, perform building retrofits, and guarantee the energy savings of the retrofit projects. Building owners will be able to pay back the retrofit loans with interest from the energy savings.

Under the Clinton project, 15 cities have agreed to develop programs to make their municipal buildings more energy efficient and provide incentives for owners of commercial buildings to install energy- saving technology. Among the 15 cities where municipal buildings will be retrofitted in the first phase of the project are three U.S. cities: Chicago, Houston and New York. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city is setting aside about $80 million a year to retrofit city buildings.

Source: NREI, 2007

"We now have large organizations that look like for- profit organizations, and many types of organizations doing business that weren't around twenty-five years ago....While the sector has changed, the form has pretty much stayed the same."

-- Lois G. Lerner, director of the tax-exempt division of the IRS, commenting on the agency's plans to overhaul Form 990

Source: New York Times 6/15/07

• International Business Confidence
• Global business confidence remains consistent with just below potential growth, as it more or less has for the past year. Confidence has improved from its low point at the very end of last year, due to the end of the global manufacturing inventory cycle and more stable sentiment among real estate firms. Still weighing on confidence are lackluster sales and worries about the business outlook. Pricing pressures continue to rise, due primarily to higher energy prices. Financial and business service firms and South American businesses are the most optimistic. Vehicle manufacturers and European businesses are the least upbeat.

• Risk of Recession
• The Moody's Economy.com probability of recession slipped in May to 16%, from April's 21%. The drop in the probability of recession is consistent with the recent spate of strong data that suggests that the economy is gaining momentum in the current quarter. The decline in unemployment insurance claims in May signals that there is little slack developing in the labor market, while the improvement in equity markets over the month is also encouraging. Also, with the yield curve recently dropping its inverted stance, the signs of a recession are gradually fading.

• Treasury International Capital Flows
• Net long-term TIC flows were $84.1 billion in April, following a print of $67.6 billion in March. Total net TIC flows were $11.8 billion in April following a net flow of $45 billion in March. Both the total net TIC flow and net long-term TIC flows in April were better than expected.

• Western Europe - New Passenger Car Registrations
• The number of new passenger car registrations in the EU15 fell by 2.5% y/y in April, extending the trend decline to a third month. Sharp losses in the major markets of Germany, France, and Spain were the cause, partially offset by an increase in the U.K.

• NAHB Housing Market Index
• Homebuilder optimism decreased another two points to 28 in June, after dropping six points total in April and May. Overall, the index is down in every component. In fact, the traffic of potential buyers index value of 21 is such an exceedingly low number that the bottom of the housing market appears nowhere in sight.

• Consumer Price Index
• The seasonally adjusted consumer price index increased 0.7% in May, after increasing 0.4% in April and 0.6% in March. A sharp increase of 5.4% in energy prices fueled the growth in headline CPI. The core index, which excludes food and energy prices, increased by 0.1% in May, after increasing 0.2% in April. Over the past year, core CPI inflation has run at a 2.3% rate, compared to 2.4% in the previous month. While the headline reading came in somewhat higher than the consensus had predicted, the core index was 0.1 of a percentage point below expectations.

• Industrial Production
• Industrial production stagnated in May following two months of solid gains. A 1.3% decline in utility production canceled out the increase in manufacturing output, which rose a scant 0.1%. Capacity utilization fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 81.3%.

• PPI
• Producer prices for finished goods rose somewhat faster than expected in May, rising sharply (0.9%) for the fourth consecutive month. Inflation among finished goods was primarily due to large price increases among energy products. Prices for energy products rose sharply at all levels of processing. Excluding food and energy, prices for finished goods rose by 0.2%. Core inflation remained stronger among intermediate goods, with prices rising by 0.4% on the month.

• Quarterly Services Survey
• In the first quarter of 2007, the information industry reported over-the-year revenue increases of 7.0%. Administrative and support and waste management and remediation services revenue was unchanged, and professional, scientific and technical revenue was up 6.9% over the year. Revenues in selected healthcare services increased by 7.4%.

• MBA Delinquency Rates
• The delinquency rate of first mortgages decreased 11 basis points to 4.84% on a quarter-to- quarter basis in the first quarter of 2007, while foreclosures increased nine basis points to 1.28%. The decline in delinquency rates may reflect a concerted effort from the owners of mortgages to cure loans and avoid the total costs associated with foreclosure sales.

Source: Economy.com, ICSC SmartBrief & Financial Times