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April 1, 2013
2013 NAREIT Leader in the Light Award Program and Global Real Estate Sustainability (GRESB) Benchmarking Survey
NAREIT encourages your company's participation in the 2013 Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) Survey and NAREIT's Leader in the Light award program, which will be open for responses between today, April 1, 2013 and June 30, 2013. As a participant in the 2013 GRESB survey, you will receive an individual company scorecard; offering unique insight into your organization's relative sustainability performance against peers and leaders in North America.
By way of background, last June NAREIT's Executive Board approved NAREIT migrating its Leader in the Light award program framework into the GRESB platform; beginning with last year's Leader in the Light competition. NAREIT has been involved in an advisory capacity with GRESB, a global consortium of institutional investors and real estate industry associations committed to rigorous and independent evaluation of the sustainability performance of listed and private company real estate portfolios, over the past two years. GRESB's annual benchmarking survey aims to evaluate sustainability performance of REITs, real estate companies and funds on a portfolio-wide basis; and to inform investors of the success and progress of the respondents' sustainability initiatives.
An important element of NAREIT's 2012 migration into GRESB included integrating into the GRESB platform a set of supplemental "Leader in the Light" questions. While 2012 Leader in the Light questions were submitted separate from the GRESB Survey, for 2013 we're pleased to report that they are embedded directly into the GRESB Survey. Scoring for the 2013 Leader in the Light awards will result from a combination of the score on the baseline GRESB survey (scored by the GRESB system, and which will carry a 70% weight); together with the score on the supplemental Leader in the Light questions (scored by a panel of judges, and which will carry a 30% weight).
In 2012, 450 real estate fund managers and property companies throughout the world - including 30 listed companies from the U.S. - participated in the GRESB Survey; up from 350 in 2011. The GRESB Survey is now actively used by 45 institutional real estate investors and investment managers as a means to engage with their investors, benchmark the performance of their portfolios and assess how efficient and productive asset and property managers are in implementing sustainability best practices. It is our belief that benchmarking can help generate and strengthen market forces to improve the current sustainability performance of the property sector; and accordingly, NAREIT encourages all corporate members to complete the 2013 GRESB Survey and supplemental Leader in the Light questions. To begin, simply go to the GRESB website www.gresb.com. Should you need assistance, you can contact GRESB directly at survey@gresb.com.
Lastly, we want to remind you that as you provide information in response to the GRESB Survey, you should be mindful of the various regulatory and reporting requirements your organization may be subject to, including SEC Regulation FD; and you should consult with your legal and/or compliance professionals to make sure that you are meeting those various obligations.
Feel free to contact either me or Sheldon Groner, NAREIT's Executive Vice President, Finance & Operations (sgroner@nareit.com) should you have any questions.
All the best,
Steven A. Wechsler
President and CEO
NAREIT
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