This year, global ULI Greenprint real estate members reported a 6.3 percent year-for-year, like-for-like reduction in absolute carbon emissions. This result marks the second year in a row that members have reported a reduction of more than 6 percent in absolute carbon emissions—a testament to ULI Greenprint members’ leadership in making progress on their sustainability goals. In addition to leading by example, members continue to fund ULI resources that support the broader industry’s decarbonization progress.
Brian Swett, ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability board chair and chief climate officer for the city of Boston, explains that: “In just the past year, these more than 130 real estate companies have hosted embodied carbon convenings across the supply chain and contributed to resources, like the Global Green Building Policy Dashboard, that support the broader real estate industry in its decarbonization activities.”
ULI Greenprint celebrated its 15th year of annual reporting for the recently published State of Green report. ULI Greenprint now has more than 130 real estate members that submit data for more than 25,000 properties. Blakely Jarrett, vice president and global lead for the ULI Greenprint community, added, “One thing has not changed: ULI Greenprint members embody the program’s goal of ‘reducing carbon, building value,’ showing the global real estate industry that sustainability is good for business.”
Year-over-year results
In 2023, ULI Greenprint members reported continued reductions across carbon, energy, water, and waste use. ULI Greenprint tracks like-for-like, year-over-year reductions in these four categories.
- Carbon emissions: -6.3 percent
- Energy use: -2.7 percent
- Water use: -1.9 percent
- Landfill Waste: -0.8 percent
This year, the report included regional breakdowns of whole-building, year-over-year data. In the Americas, there were reductions across all metrics, including a 5.1 percent reduction in CO2 emissions and a 2.3 percent reduction in energy use. Asia-Pacific properties had some slight increases in emissions and energy use across a much smaller sample size. In Europe, members reported an incredible 17.4 percent reduction in carbon emissions. It comes from a 5.5 percent reduction in energy use, as well as a 5.7 percent reduction in fuel consumption, and can also be attributed to a greening grid.
Adapting to the changing market
In 2024, ULI expanded its net zero–by–2050 goal to give members greater flexibility in setting the boundaries of their goals, and to keep pace with an evolving market around net zero commitments that require increasing transparency, whole-building performance standards, and inclusion of Scope 3 emissions. Companies may now align to one of three tracks that determine which types of spaces and carbon in buildings are included, as shown in the graphic below.
- Track 1: Landlord spaces, operational carbon
- Track 2: Whole building, operational carbon
- Track 3: Whole building, life-cycle carbon
Over the past two years, State of Green reporting has shifted to reflect the evolving landscape of sustainability reporting. This year was the second in which ULI collected optional embodied carbon data, and the first year that ULI has collected optional refrigerant emissions. Increased participation shows that these measurements constitute a signpost for increased reporting and future industry measurement.
Revamped customizable performance dashboard
ULI Greenprint members can also request a member-specific report to further break down their data. This member dashboard empowers members to analyze their data with new regional, asset-type, and performance metric breakdowns to better understand the best-performing and worst-performing buildings in their portfolios. Members can compare their data against those of the wider Greenprint community of practice to better understand how their assets perform.
Interested in joining? To learn more about the program, email [email protected] if you’re a sustainability practitioner at a company that owns, develops, and invests—or any combination of the three—in commercial real estate.
