Kevin Hagen, interim CEO at Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA), participated in a video interview at Nareit’s REITworks: 2023 Conference in Las Vegas on June 28-29.
Hagen said CEBA is a collection of more than 400 organizations representing the largest energy buyers in the country that helps its members make transactions to accelerate clean energy purchasing.
“We [also] look ahead to identify and hopefully remove barriers to future clean energy procurement—hopefully before anybody even knows they happened,” he said.
Turning to the challenges that REITs have in the ESG space, Hagen said sustainable business thinking has been a “wonderful innovation” over the past decade.
“Becoming good customers of electricity providers, whether that’s our utilities or third-party providers, really helps us be part of our community in a whole different way,” he said. “It brings the power of procurement, the power of our footprint, into play when it comes to solving some of the country’s and the world’s biggest environmental and social challenges.”
Hagen added that when it comes to the negative impact of carbon within a building’s footprint, much of that comes from electricity, so energy efficiency and access to clean energy are crucial for REITs.