Sally Wilson, AIA, LEED AP is the Global Director of Environmental Strategy/Director of Advisory Services for CBRE, Washington, DC.
You were the first LEED accredited broker. What motivated you to take that on?
I saw a gap in what was happening in the transaction industry. Most green building measures were happening after transactions were occurring, and the architect, contractor and brokers weren't really paying attention to it. I saw a need from the client's side. I had a couple of specific clients that were interested and I had a personal interest in [green building]. I encouraged CBRE to join the USGBC in early 2004 and I became LEED accredited shortly thereafter. In Washington, DC, a lot more was happening with [green building] because the government is based here. I have a background in architecture, so I'm very tied in with the architectural community. It just seemed like a natural thing, like something we should be covering as brokers.
Since becoming LEED-accredited, how have you seen the real estate industry grow and change regarding environmental awareness?
I would say that in the first two years that the real estate community wasn't doing anything. It's really only been in the past year, even six months, [that environmental programs have been put into place] and it's primarily been CBRE doing it. Now that we're doing it, everybody is starting to pay attention and jump into it. There have been some "one-off" episodes and some great developers out there at the forefront, like Hines REIT, and Durst and Silverstein in New York. But a lot of [green initiatives] have been driven by local jurisdiction -- Seattle and Portland have a lot of green legislation going on. There's a lot of incentive, a lot of awareness. On the brokerage side, it wasn't seen because a lot of tenants were doing things business-as-usual.
What are some of green initiatives that CBRE has put in place?
We have a policy that we put out at the end of May 2007. We are going to be carbon-neutral by the end of 2010, and all of our facilities—we have over 400 offices across the globe, totaling about 5 million square feet—will be carbon-neutral by 2010. Currently, we have engaged a consultant, we are undergoing verification of our footprint, and we're beginning, on the operations side, to put energy savings strategies and office operation strategies in place. We're buying Energy Star equipment, setting printers to print double-sided using recycled paper, using only CFL light bulbs, and doing other easy things like that. We're going through the process of greening our own space to push towards neutrality by 2010.
As we lease new spaces, we're going into better buildings that are more energy efficient and have better indoor air quality, and we are pursuing LEED for commercial interiors or LEED CI certification in those spaces. I work in our Washington, DC office and we are relocating to a new facility. We're going to have a LEED CI gold space there that we're designing. We're also doing LEED spaces in Minneapolis, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale.
By going through this exercise of greening our own house, we're learning; we're a kind of guinea pig for our own clients. Within our different lines of businesses and in our corporate and institutional services, we're offering professional services on helping our clients understand how to green their portfolios or spaces and invest in green.
As a company, we manage 1.7 billion square feet of real estate across the globe. We have a goal within our asset services side -- "which is our property management side" to engage all 90 percent of our clients this coming year in conversations about how to green their properties and the benefits of that. We have a number of LEED-accredited professionals within all lines of businesses. We actually have a goal to have 100 LEED EB (or existing buildings), in our assets services group by the end of this year. Next year we're going to have nearly 500 LEAD-accredited professionals throughout the company. That's not just in brokerage, but in property management, building engineering, corporate services, consulting, project management— in every line of business, we're looking to offer green services to our clients.
So, that's the external component. In support of that, we've been working very hard on educational pieces to bring our staff up to speed on understanding what carbon-neutrality means, and the basics of LEED. We have online courses we've developed with the USGBC offering basic "LEED 101" knowledge for everybody. We've set up advanced, all-day workshops for people to learn more about LEED for existing buildings or new construction; after you take these workshops, you can study the manual and take the test to become LEED accredited. We're encouraging as many people to do this as they can, and we're organizing with the USGBC to hold these seminars.
Do you find yourself getting more business because of these initiatives?
Yes. I think that's clearly why all of the sudden the real estate industry has turned around. As brokers, my team operates not as space-finders but as consultants or service providers. We look at real estate as if it's an adjunct of a business plan -- it should help you perform in a better way through better real estate strategy operationally as a business. Green is just one component of that, just like location is. When we talk to our clients about the benefits of going green, we look at not only the energy-cost savings that they have, but also the performance basis of a business. Even if we look just at the productivity cost and reduced absenteeism, recruiting, and retention, the numbers are so compelling for investing in a green space that it becomes a choice. As tenants are becoming much more aware, we have to have this expertise.
Could you comment on the greening of the real estate industry internationally?
We have other designations abroad, and there are other requirements to follow; for instance, in the EMEA "Europe, Middle East, and Asia" the Kyoto Protocol is required. Our offices in Europe are meeting those requirements. They're pretty far ahead of what we're doing here in the US; but as a global company, this gives us lots of experience to learn from. The London office is managing and spearheading our getting to carbon-neutrality here, because they have years of experience doing it there. Plus, the European offices are applying for LEED certification, or for ISO 14001, which is an operational space-based component. Europe is pretty far ahead of us, and it's great to have those experienced people in our company to learn from. We have a lot of collaboration from London to help us understand it better; the same with Australia. Our leaders in the Asia-Pacific region are based in Australia—they're doing so much more because they have incredible drought conditions there, so the energy management and water-savings measures they're putting in place, and the buildings technology, is so much more. We're learning from around the globe how we can do better in the US by our experience outside.
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10/17/07 @ 15:34 
