Joseph Azrack, principal of Azrack & Company, and his wife Abigail Congdon, along with Dan Cashdan, president of Jones Lang LaSalle Securities, and his wife Allisyn Cashdan, have donated a combined $500,000 to the ULI Foundation’s first capital campaign, Our Cities, Our Future, in support of the Net Zero Imperative (NZI), ULI’s multiyear initiative to accelerate decarbonization of the built environment. For both families, this is their second gift to NZI, making their combined giving impact nearly $1 million.
“The Net Zero Imperative is a global initiative that unites the public and private sectors to address local net zero challenges related to real estate, land use, and development,” says Marta Schantz, co-executive director of the ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate, which administers NZI through ULI’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance. The initiative convenes Advisory Services panels and technical assistance panels (TAPs) to help building owners and their local governments implement decarbonization strategies for the built environment.
“The ULI Lewis Center for Sustainability has a tremendous team, a tremendous board, and a tremendous staff,” says Cashdan, a ULI trustee and past chairman of the ULI Lewis Center for Sustainability. “So when I heard that people like Owen Thomas and Lynn Thurber and Joe Azrack were putting money together for the NZI, my wife Allisyn and I thought this was the place we would contribute, too. ULI is uniquely positioned in terms of climate change and the pathway to net zero in our buildings; there’s probably no organization better equipped on a global basis to interact with owners, developers, and investors.”
Azrack says he has long had an interest in conservation and real estate in the built environment. Serving as co-chair of the ULI panel convened in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2013 further raised his awareness. “The impacts of climate change have become increasingly evident, including unprecedented extreme weather events globally that impact migration and refugee crises,” he says. “[ULI] can not only educate its members, but also demonstrate ‘proof of concept’ for improving the energy efficiency of property development and operations with clean energy solutions that can be profitable for owners and investors and good for society at large.”
NZI allows the real estate community to demonstrate leadership and take action at the local level, Schantz says. The second NZI cohort, which includes individuals from cities such as Atlanta, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Monterrey, Mexico, is currently concluding its work.
“The program has encompassed a diverse range of topics, projects, and stakeholders, tailored to the needs of each locality,” Schantz says. In Los Angeles, the focus was on evaluating a district energy system and involving the private sector in its optimization for an efficient net zero future. In Minneapolis, the focus was how to transform a brownfield transit-oriented development area into a net zero district.
“These endeavors are strongly rooted in equity, ensuring that everyone benefits and collaborates toward achieving net zero.”
The program enables participants to share recommendations with each other. Staff members at the ULI Lewis Center for Sustainability also distill takeaways from the participants’ experiences to produce reports available to the real estate sector across the globe.
Increasing NZI’s funding allows the program to reach more cities, as well as to engage long term with participants for implementation. It also enables local teams to execute fully funded TAPs to avoid value engineering. “This year we increased the grant amount for each team from $25,000 to $35,000, because we recognize that the costs of a TAP as well as the ongoing implementation have gone up because of inflation,” Schantz says.
Applications for NZI’s third cohort are open through July 31.
RON NYREN is a freelance architecture, urban planning, and real estate writer based in the San Francisco Bay area.
