Chicago, Oct. 14, 2020 – Heitman LLC (Heitman), a global real estate investment management firm, today announced that the firm will reduce its private equity portfolio’s operational carbon emissions under its control to net zero by the year 2030. This commitment aligns with Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Greenprint Center for Building Performance (Greenprint) goal to reduce operational carbon emissions to net zero by the year 2050.
“We make this pledge with the future in mind and an expectation that environmental, social, and governance excellence should result in improved investment performance while leading to a better tomorrow for the citizens of the globe,” said Maury Tognarelli, Heitman CEO. “Our net zero commitment is one among several global property firms that are prioritizing achieving zero carbon operations for their portfolios in concert with ULI Greenprint and we look forward to working with them toward this consequential goal.”
The net zero carbon goal is designed to accelerate and meaningfully reduce the built environment’s impact on climate change. The goal follows the World Green Building Council’s (WorldGBC) definition of net zero, which encourages portfolio-wide carbon reductions via continued energy efficiency improvements, on-site and off-site renewable energy investments, green utility power purchasing agreements, and acquiring renewable energy credits and offsets. ULI Greenprint provides the framework and roadmap to net zero, setting boundaries to, at a minimum, reduce all carbon to zero for building areas under operational control.
“Achieving net zero carbon operations by 2030 is an important undertaking and will complement our asset- and market-level climate risk assessment at the time of investment,” said Laura Craft, Heitman Head of Global ESG Strategy. “Effectively managing the growing risk that climate change poses to our client’s portfolios is important and the early adoption of global net zero carbon emissions while we continue to build resilient, sustainable investment portfolios should result in improved outcomes for our clients.”
Heitman believes climate risk mitigation is as critical as carbon reduction. Heitman and ULI recently released their second report examining climate risk and its impacts on real estate titled “Climate Risk and Real Estate: Emerging Practices for Market Assessment.” This new report looks beyond the real estate industry’s response to asset-level climate risk impacts by focusing upon how investors are considering market-level climate risk in their investment decision process.
About Heitman
Founded in 1966, Heitman LLC is a global real estate investment management firm with approximately $43 billion in assets under management. Heitman’s real estate investment strategies include direct investments in the equity or debt capitalization of a property or in the securities of listed and publicly traded real estate companies. Heitman serves a global client base with clients from North American, European, Middle Eastern and Asia-Pacific institutions, pension plans, foundations and corporations and individual investors. Headquartered in Chicago, with additional offices in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, Heitman’s more than 325 employees offer specialized expertise – from a specific discipline to local insight.
