Rising GRESB Score and New WELL Health-Safety Rating Result From Portfolio-Wide Improvements
Savanna has been acknowledged by two main trade organizations for portfolio-wide efficiency in sustainability and wellness. Savanna formally earned the WELL Health-Safety Rating certification for its total New York City portfolio this month and achieved a four- or five-star ranking for all of its portfolio degree submissions to the 2020 Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (“GRESB”) survey, the outcomes of which have been revealed in November.
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Savanna’s new improvement at 141 Willoughby Street in Brooklyn. (Photo: Business Wire)
“We have been making a concerted effort over an extended time frame to repeatedly improve our ESG program and efficiency, and we take nice satisfaction in each of those current achievements,” mentioned Peter Rosenthal, Principal, Director of Development and Chief Sustainability Officer. “While our vertically built-in workforce has labored collectively for a few years to combine sustainability throughout our platform, this previous 12 months, the well being and wellness part of ESG grew to become a transparent focus throughout the pandemic. We responded accordingly and labored onerous to make sure that our portfolio was appropriately positioned to accommodate tenants in a post-COVID atmosphere.”
By clearly demonstrating well being and security as a high precedence and introducing many well being and wellness enhancements at its buildings, Savanna certified for the coveted WELL Health-Safety Rating on behalf of all of its New York City properties. Issued by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), the WELL Health-Safety Rating is an evidence-based, third-party verified ranking for all new and present constructing and area varieties specializing in operational insurance policies, upkeep protocols, stakeholder engagement, emergency plans to deal with a post-COVID-19 atmosphere, and monitoring options of the constructed atmosphere that affect human well being and wellbeing, by seven core areas – air, water, nourishment, mild, health, consolation, and thoughts.
In addition to growing tailor-made re-entry plans for every of its properties and implementing quite a few new operational protocols, Savanna additionally made many bodily adjustments to its buildings post-pandemic in order to deal with tenants’ evolving well being and security wants. Upgrades at sure properties included the implementation of touchless constructing entry with smartphone connectivity to turnstiles; vacation spot dispatch elevators; touchless, computerized and anti-microbial fixtures and {hardware} in the restrooms; bi-polar ionization know-how in the HVAC programs; ultraviolet germicidal irradiation; enhanced filtration; and elevated air flow charges.
Savanna has applied not solely well being and wellness measures but in addition a number of different ESG initiatives, which the agency has been steadily rolling out and bettering over the previous a number of years. Internally, Savanna takes a holistic, multi-disciplinary method to its ESG platform, which is led by a 7-person workforce comprised of members from the agency’s Investor Relations, Project Management, Leasing, Investment, and Construction Management groups.
Members of the ESG Team have overseen the agency’s lively participation and membership in GRESB, the main ESG and sustainability international benchmark, for almost 10 years. Savanna works with two third-party sustainability consultants, the Energy and Sustainability Services workforce at Jones Lang LaSalle (“JLL”), and Quinn & Partners, in an effort to repeatedly enhance its ESG program on the agency, portfolio, and asset degree. Together with Savanna’s consultants, the ESG workforce has efficiently led the pursuit and achievement of a number of LEED and Energy Star certifications throughout the portfolio, the event of complete ESG associated insurance policies and reviews, and the completion of asset degree analyses to guage power conservation measures.
“Savanna has established itself as a CRE market chief in response to COVID-19 by early adoption of the WELL Health-Safety Rating and has additionally built-in ESG and sustainability initiatives into its properties’ daily operations, ensuing in substantial enchancment in GRESB efficiency,” mentioned Crissy Haley, Vice President of Energy & Sustainability at JLL. “As the market shifts its focus even deeper to carbon reductions, Savanna has been proactive in growing a method to mitigate its affect and additional its market management.”
As sustainability continues to be extremely valued by each tenants and buyers, and as well being and wellness have emerged to take middle stage, Savanna continues to prioritize its dedication to ESG. The workforce is at present engaged on growing and implementing numerous new initiatives for 2021.
About Savanna
Savanna, fashioned in 1992, is a vertically-integrated actual property funding supervisor primarily based in New York City and targeted on strategic property investments all through the City’s 5 boroughs. The agency pursues actual property fairness and debt investments, together with ground-up improvement and main repositioning initiatives. Savanna’s fairness investments goal worth add/opportunistic returns by including worth by asset administration and/or property improvement, redevelopment, and repositioning, deploying a workforce of greater than 50 skilled funding, asset administration, building, and leasing professionals. Savanna additionally selectively invests in actual property debt devices which have the potential to generate equity-like returns, together with most well-liked fairness devices, excessive yield bridge and mezzanine loans, and B-notes. Since 2006, Savanna has invested over $5 billion in complete capital throughout roughly 17 million sq. ft of actual property.
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