Recent research has found that buyers will pay a premium for homes that are environmentally friendly and have lower energy bills, but real estate agents don’t often actively promote green features.

From 2008 to 2013, for example, only about 14.8 percent of high-performance homes in the Washington, D.C., area were listed using existing green fields in the Multiple Listing System (MLS), according to a study conducted by the Institute for Market Transformation, Elevate Energy, and a unit of the Rockville, Md.-based Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS).

In the latest study, CoreLogic found that just 3 to 5 percent of listings use green fields when available in a given market – which, according to the National Association of Realtors®, includes 79 percent of the 100 biggest metro areas in the country.

“Agent training and education will encourage adoption and greater use of the new green fields,” according to MRIS.

Meanwhile, recent research by Elevate Energy finds that Chicago-area homes that disclosed energy costs when listed with Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED) sold at a higher price: Attached homes listed for $352,000 sold for an average $4,576 more and spent 25 fewer days on market when energy costs were disclosed.

MRED, the City of Chicago, and Elevate Energy issued a challenge to area agents and realty firms to use MRED’s digital energy cost disclosure fees on all eligible listings; make a staff member responsible for training activities on the Energy eCompliance tool; and add energy cost disclosure fields to their listing process.