Brandywine Realty Trust Focused on Tools for Sustainability Success
04/09/2013
| by
Mitch Irzinski
Brad Molotsky, executive vice president and general counsel with Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE: BDN), joined REIT.com for a video interview at REITWise 2013: NAREIT’s 2013 Law, Accounting and Finance Conference in La Quinta, Calif.
Brandywine has its headquarters in Radnor, Pa. Brandywine owns, leases and manages urban, town center and suburban office properties.
Brandywine was recently recognized as a 2013 Energy Star Partner of the Year. Molotsky discussed the evolution of the company’s sustainability program.
“In 2009 we had a couple of construction folks starting to look at what we could do on the sustainable tenant-improvement front,” he said. “It became a full package of offerings, and the focus was [if] could we do things for free that were better for our tenants, better for the environment, better for our kids and better for our vendors.”
Molotsky also discussed how the company measures the success of its sustainability initiatives.
“Measurement is tough,” he said. “We’ve looked at a variety of tools in order to help us. In certain circumstances like trash, we have all of our vendors reporting directly to us, not to our property managers. On other things we have enterprise software that will measure dynamic payback across the portfolio.”
Molotsky described a project that best exemplifies Brandywine’s sustainability program.
“LED lights would be one,” he said. “A variety of different property managers are looking at and have actually deployed LED lights and have had great success,” he said. “There are a lot of light bulbs in a portfolio of our size, and the ability to re-deploy them into higher-functioning needs is a big savings.”
Molotsky shared his thoughts on what the next phase of sustainability might be.
“Required energy disclosure will level the playing field for people who are doing things and paying attention and people who are not,” he said.
Brandywine has its headquarters in Radnor, Pa. Brandywine owns, leases and manages urban, town center and suburban office properties.
Brandywine was recently recognized as a 2013 Energy Star Partner of the Year. Molotsky discussed the evolution of the company’s sustainability program.
“In 2009 we had a couple of construction folks starting to look at what we could do on the sustainable tenant-improvement front,” he said. “It became a full package of offerings, and the focus was [if] could we do things for free that were better for our tenants, better for the environment, better for our kids and better for our vendors.”
Molotsky also discussed how the company measures the success of its sustainability initiatives.
“Measurement is tough,” he said. “We’ve looked at a variety of tools in order to help us. In certain circumstances like trash, we have all of our vendors reporting directly to us, not to our property managers. On other things we have enterprise software that will measure dynamic payback across the portfolio.”
Molotsky described a project that best exemplifies Brandywine’s sustainability program.
“LED lights would be one,” he said. “A variety of different property managers are looking at and have actually deployed LED lights and have had great success,” he said. “There are a lot of light bulbs in a portfolio of our size, and the ability to re-deploy them into higher-functioning needs is a big savings.”
Molotsky shared his thoughts on what the next phase of sustainability might be.
“Required energy disclosure will level the playing field for people who are doing things and paying attention and people who are not,” he said.