RILA, IMT Issue Green Lease Primer
The Retail Green Lease Primer, a new resource by the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), elucidates the concept of a sustainable retail lease and identifies opportunities for enhanced shopping-center building performance.
The first-of-its-kind document aims to help retailers and retail owners improve the efficiency of their facilities. Developed with significant input from national owners and retailers, the tool offers information on the specific retail lease provisions necessary for achieving energy, waste, and water use and cost savings.
“Retailers recognize that there are opportunities to improve the efficiency of the buildings they lease,” said Adam Siegel, VP of sustainability & retail operations at Washington, D.C.-based RILA, “and green leasing is a tool to help do that.”
“This document will be an important educational tool to help facilitate internal conversations and negotiations between parties,” added Adam Sledd, program director for commercial real estate engagement at IMT, also based in Washington.
Over the past two years, many U.S.-based retailers and landlords have worked together to pinpoint the opportunities for more sustainable facilities and the obstacles to attaining them. They’ve identified the lease as a key mechanism to promote sustainability; the retail leasing process can either unearth or hinder opportunities to implement energy, waste, water use and cost reductions.
“Pyramid Management Group recognizes the benefits to efficient facilities and has a strong interest in developing leases that promote efficiency,” noted Lauren Staniec, tenant coordinator and sustainability coordinator at Syracuse, N.Y.-based Pyramid Management Group, a developer with 17 properties in New York and Massachusetts. In February 2012, Pyramid’s Destiny USA property received LEED Gold certification, and the company is now actively collaborating with its retail tenants to improve their energy, water, waste, and indoor air quality performance, thereby creating a more comfortable shopping environment and reducing costs.
The primer is part of RILA’s overall Retail Sustainability Initiative.