COMMITMENT
We remain committed to sustainable business practices in our day-to-day activities by encouraging a culture of environmental responsibility at our headquarters and within our communities. We work with our clients to promote environmental responsibility at the properties we own.
ACTIVITIES
As we grow our sustainability efforts, we intend to leverage our size and expand our client engagement efforts to achieve shared sustainability objectives. We are:
- Better serving our clients: A Client Services team was established in our Real Estate Operations department to engage with our clients to identify opportunities to install or finance onsite renewable electricity, LED lighting, EV charging infrastructure, and more. Our teams collaborate across the organization to continuously explore additional ways to serve our clients by helping them achieve their sustainability goals
- Shared goals and shared data: We work with our clients to understand their utility data and emissions to align our ESG initiatives and create shared goals. Major efforts have been underway to aggregate client utility data for the operations of our real estate. We do this through relationship building, data share agreements, and green lease provisions in our lease transactions
- Client experience training: We hold rotating client experience trainings that help our staff better connect our mission, vision,
- values, and goals to interactions with our clients. The teams, who interact often with clients, gain a deeper understanding of these areas so that we can help clients meet the demands of an evolving ESG landscape
- Collaborating on green sustainable buildings: The implementation of sustainable building projects and initiatives can vary widely for clients depending on their location and the local building codes, the size of the client, the type of building, the scope of the project, etc. We coordinate with our clients for potential green projects that are identified by clients or that we identify
- Strategic partnerships: Our team has a network of partners who offer on-site solar and EV charging infrastructure, LED lighting installation, and more. If a client is interested in sustainability measures such as improving energy efficiency, reducing emissions, or saving water, we likely have a trusted partner we can bring to our clients
Headquarters Highlight
Upgrading our headquarters with environmentally friendly features allows us to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability and test innovative solutions before rolling them out to our clients’ properties. In 2020, we began work towards our goal of offsetting approximately 100% of electric usage at our San Diego headquarters by 2023, based off a 2019 baseline. By maximizing energy efficiency and piloting solar energy, cutting-edge irrigation technologies, and other programs, we are leading the way for our clients and showing them what our sustainability partners can achieve.
CLIENT ENGAGEMENT
OUR COMMITMENT
We hold the protection of our assets, communities, and the environment in high regard. Based on our business model, the properties in our portfolio are primarily net-leased to our clients. Each client is generally responsible for maintaining the buildings, including managing utilities and implementing sustainable practices, which makes aggregating and reporting on this data difficult. By analyzing the baseline characteristics of our portfolio, we can better understand our clients' needs and build strong and enduring relationships to achieve our shared long-term goal of reducing the environmental impact of our portfolio.
ACTIVITIES WITHIN OUR PORTFOLIO
Many of our clients focus on positive environmental and social impacts through their comprehensive corporate responsibility programs. Since our clients retain operational control of the properties we own, we work closely with them towards achieving mutual sustainability goals. For instance, to earn LEED certification, a building must meet standards in several areas, and we are prepared to assist our clients through the process. Through our Asset Management and Real Estate Operations and Sustainability teams' efforts, we engage with renewable energy development companies to identify assets that would maximize energy efficiency initiatives throughout our property portfolio. These initiatives include solar energy arrays, battery storage, and charging stations. In addition, we continue to explore regional opportunities with our clients in order to qualify for city and county renewable energy or energy efficiency programs.
CLIENT HIGHLIGHT
Sainsbury’s, the U.K.’s second-largest supermarket company, committed £1.0 billion ($1.31 billion) to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, with increased renewable energy in stores and operations, energy-efficient fridges, and an expanded fleet of low emission delivery vehicles. As part of this strategy aligned to the Paris Agreement, the company committed to setting an absolute Scope 3 target to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030 under the Science-based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
If you’re interested in learning more about our climate mitigation efforts at our headquarters or within our portfolio, please contact the Sustainability Department.