Bill Crooker, president and CEO of STAG Industrial, Inc. (NYSE: STAG), participated in a video interview at Nareit’s REITworld: 2022 Annual Conference held in San Francisco on Nov. 15-17.
Crooker said that STAG’s GRESB disclosure rating, which was recently upgraded to an “A,” is very important to the REIT as part of its overall ESG efforts.
“As part of our initiative…we got better insight into our tenants’ usage of their utilities within the building,” he said. “We were able to partner with [tenants] and put more environmental initiatives in place, including solar as an amenity on the roofs.”
Crooker said that although STAG invested $1.3 billion in almost 75 properties in 2021, it’s difficult to price debt today, so they have not continued on that path in 2022.
“When you can’t price debt, it’s very hard to price assets,” he said. “[But] we fortunately are in a position now where our internal growth has continued to accelerate.”
Crooker also discussed the STAG Industrial Charitable Fund, established in 2020 to promote equality and inspire at-risk young people to realize their potential and benefit future generations.
“It really has been part of our DNA,” Crooker said. “We’ve made five-year commitments with a number of charities to better…underprivileged children in the communities that they’re in.”