New York Sustainability & ESG

Joe joined Rubenstein Partners in 2021. Joe has over 25 years of real estate investment, development, asset management, and restructuring experience across all major property classes, with deep experience both in New York City and globally. In 2015, Mr. Zuber was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Amstar Group LLC, a privately owned real estate organization based in Denver, Colorado with ~$2.5 billion of AUM. Joe successfully led the restructuring of Amstar, including streamlining its operations, enhancing its liquidity, and repositioning the organization for growth before returning home to New York in late 2016. Joe was the Managing Principal of Black Walnut Capital LLC, a real estate private equity entity that invests in longer duration real estate investments on behalf of institutions and ultra-high net worth families. Joe was previously the President and Chief Operating Officer of O’Connor Capital Partners and a partner in the firm. Joe was responsible for O’Connor’s multi-billion dollar real estate funds business, including direct responsibility for its investment management platform. Mr. Zuber led the firm’s investment strategy, including the day-to-day management of 18 investing professionals, and the strategic oversight of the firm’s portfolio of 40 plus real estate investments with total capitalization in excess of $4.1 billion. Previously, Mr. Zuber served as the Chief Investment Officer of The City Investment Fund, LP (CIF), a fully integrated real estate investment manager designed to pursue opportunistic real estate investments within New York City. Established in 2004 by Fisher Brothers and Morgan Stanley, CIF committed to 31 investments with a total capitalization of ~$4.0 billion during his tenure. Mr. Zuber was also an Executive Director of The Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds (“MSREF”), where he was responsible for sourcing and executing U.S. investment opportunities and led MSREF’s investing activities in New York City. Joe received an MBA from The Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia and a B.Arch. degree from Cornell University.

Michael Gilbert has deep domain expertise, as well as public and private sector experience in the areas of energy and the environmental management. He has a passion for creating value in these areas at the nexus of technology, policy and finance. Michael has provided business strategy analysis and consultation to several companies in the areas of business strategy, algae, biomaterials, renewable energy, energy management, micro-grids, green buildings, carbon capture, remediation and sustainability. He also has experience with sustainability issues related to aviation lodging, oil sands and COSIA. Michael is currently Business Development Manager for Con Edison's energy efficiency and demand management programs for the commercial & industrial customers. With an unprecedented amount of funding available, the role affords the opportunity to help clients improve resilience, reduce costs, and operate in a more sustainable manner. He served earlier as VP of Strategy and Business Development for Global Green Solutions' waste-biomass and algae production businesses, working with customers, partners, and investors. In this role, he was intimately involved in the challenge of commercializing early stage sustainable technologies within a volatile business, technological and regulatory environment. Michael was previously the Director of Sustainability at Maine Pointe LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in global supply chain excellence. He served as both a technical and financial reviewer for several rounds of USDOE funding opportunities centered on energy and water. During his career at Pitney Bowes, he was the company's Energy and Environmental Manager, and subsequently, their Manager for Futures Strategy and Scenario Planning. Michael began his career at the EPA working on hazardous waste site remediation, as also for a stint working in Central and Eastern Europe on environmental technical assistance and capacity building. Michael is a licensed Professional Engineer, Certified Energy Manager and Certified Energy Auditor. He holds a BS in Ag & Bio Engineering and an MS Environmental Engineering from Cornell, and MBA in Finance from the University Of Connecticut School Of Business. He was recently appointed by the Mayor to the City of White Plains Sustainability and Environmental Enhancement Committee, and serves on a number of volunteer advisory boards within the community.

Zach Steinberg is Senior Vice President of Policy at the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the City’s leading real estate trade association. Prior to joining REBNY, Zach served as Deputy Policy Director in the Office of the New York City Comptroller and worked in the United States Senate for former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin for the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.

The Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice is responsible for developing policies and programs to enhance the near-term and long-term sustainability of the City of New York. Samuel Man, Senior Policy Advisor, NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice Samuel’s work at the Mayor’s Office focuses on making it easier for more New Yorkers to live, work and learn in buildings that use less carbon. The first part of that work is delivered through The NYC Accelerator - a free technical assistance program to help building stakeholders not just comply with NYC energy laws, but design and construct high performance spaces that are healthier, more comfortable, and more resilient. The second part of this work is in leading the NYC Carbon Challenge - a public private partnership and voluntary leadership program to push institutions to go further faster in reducing heat-trapping pollution citywide. Samuel is a native New Yorker, a United States Marine Corps veteran, and holds degrees from the State University of New York at Albany and the City College of New York.

Adam Shelly is Project Development Director with Ecosystem, based in New York City. He works at the intersection of sustainability and technical innovation, bringing together energy expertise and knowledge of the NYC energy landscape to identify potential infrastructure modernization that addresses both asset renewal priorities and carbon reduction mandates. He also serves as a key member of NYSERDA's Technical Advisory team for the Empire Building Challenge, which provides $50 million to a group of leading building owners to test innovative new green retrofit solutions. Adam is a P.E. in several states, a C.E.M. and a licensed electrical contractor. He has an MS in Sustainable Engineering from Villanova University, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.

Hannah Bronfman has over 15 years of experience as a sustainability and green building expert, including a background in program implementation and communications with a special focus on the decarbonization of existing buildings, historic reuse, and deep retrofits. Hannah currently works at CodeGreen Solutions, heading up the implementation and planning aspects of individual assets, as well as integrating sustainability into larger organizations for their business practices, corporate-level initiatives, policies to building-portfolio management. Prior to CodeGreen, Hannah worked at SH Hotels & Resorts, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital, with property and corporate teams to enhance their sustainability strategy, implement new programs, and ensure that their sustainable business and building strategies bolster the 1 Hotels brand. Hannah joined SH Hotels & Resorts from WSP USA (formerly YR&G) where she worked on high performance design solutions, including design simulations.

Wesley O'Brien is a partner in the Real Estate Department, resident in the New York Office. He joined the Firm in 2014. Mr. O’Brien regularly advises leading real estate owners and developers as well as major institutions such as hospitals, non-profits, and cultural institutions in connection with the zoning, land use, and environmental matters for transformative development projects in New York City. He also regularly advises financial institutions in the zoning diligence for large-scale real estate project loans.

Ben Myers is the Senior Vice President, Sustainability, at Boston Properties (BXP), the largest publicly-traded developer, owner and manager of Class A office properties in the United States. He is an engineer and non-routine project manager with a passion for resource efficiency, healthy workspaces and urban ecosystems. His primary responsibilities include ESG strategy and implementation, enterprise energy and water management, green building initiatives, distributed generation and storage, energy conservation measure implementation, resilience planning, education, communication and public reporting. He holds an M.A. in Urban Environmental Leadership from Lesley University and a B.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Under Mr. Myers’ leadership, BXP has been recognized as an industry leader in ESG and sustainability. • In 2019, BXP ranked among the top 4% of all real estate companies in the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (“GRESB”) assessment. 2019 was the eighth consecutive year that BXP has ranked in the top quartile of GRESB assessment participants, earning another “Green Star” recognition and the highest GRESB 5-star Rating. • In 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019, BXP was selected by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (“Nareit”) as a Leader in the Light Award winner. In 2019, BXP earned the “Most Innovative” Leader in the Light Award. This award is given to only one company and is the highest achievement in sustainability innovation for all REITs and real estate companies. • BXP is a corporate member of the U.S. Green Building Council® (USGBC) and has a long history of owning, developing and operating properties that are certified under USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental DesignTM (LEED®) rating system. The company has LEED certified over 26 million square feet of our portfolio, of which 93% is certified at the highest Gold and Platinum levels. • BXP has been an active participant in the green bond market since 2018, issuing $1.85 billion of green bonds, which provide access to sustainability-focused investors interested in the positive environmental externalities of our business activities. • BXP has been named a Green Lease Leader at the highest Gold level by the Institute for Market Transformation and the U.S. Department of Energy for exhibiting a strong commitment to high performance and sustainability in buildings and best practices in leasing. BXP’s master lease form includes green lease clauses that support a more sustainable tenant-landlord relationship. • Since adopting public goals in 2016, the company has made great strides towards meeting its targets to reduce energy use intensity by 32%, reduce greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 45% and reduce water use intensity by 30% by the year 2025. The company achieved its 45% greenhouse gas emissions intensity goal six years early in 2019 and advanced our commitment to responsible climate action measures by pursuing the adoption of a science-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. • As a result of BXP’s efforts to improve energy efficiency and cut emissions, the company was named a 2020 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year. • BXP was named one of America’s Most Responsible Companies by Newsweek. The company ranked 122nd on Newsweek’s 2020 list of America’s 300 Most Responsible Companies, the second highest ranking given to a public REIT and the highest ranking of any office company.

Bert van den Hoek was appointed Senior Portfolio Manager North American Investments at Bouwinvest Investment Managers at the beginning of 2020. He heads Bouwinvest’s New York City satellite office with a view to increasing its investments in North America on behalf of the Dutch Constructions Workers Pension Fund, bpfBOUW. Van den Hoek has worked in real estate for almost three decades and has broad international experience in both Europe and the U.S. with Partners Group, Deutsche Bank, PGGM, GIC, Morgan Stanley and Westbrook Partners.

David has extensive experience in the structuring, placement, and servicing of master programs, contractor controlled insurance programs and subcontractor default insurance. He has worked with construction managers, general contractors, prime and trade contractors as well as owners and developers. Prior to joining NFP, David was a senior underwriter at Arch Insurance, focused on casualty and subcontractor default in the construction division. David has maintained broker and carrier relationships throughout the region as well as country wide that prove valuable to the NFP construction clients. His current responsibilities include handling daily activities and servicing functions of casualty programs as well as renewals for construction focused clients; marketing and placement of project specific and master program coverages and assist in the management of the country wide practice of construction insurance at NFP. David received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Hofstra University and maintains both the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) and Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designations.

Atalia Howe is the Assistant Vice President of Initiatives and Impact Investing at The Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), a nonprofit affordable housing and community revitalization finance company based in New York City. There she oversees CPC’s Impact Investing initiative and Sustainability, supporting CPC’s role as a leader in promoting energy efficiency and high-performance building practices.

Bali joined PLG in 2021 as the Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining PLG, he served as the CEO of Lean & Green Michigan, the PACE program in Michigan, and developed the Michigan PACE program into one of the nation's strongest PACE programs. His experience also includes serving as a management consultant at Deloitte, a transactional attorney at Proskauer, and the Executive Director of Michigan’s Wayne County Land Bank. Bali graduated with a B.A. from Brown University, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a J.D. from Berkeley Law. He is a member of the NY and CA bar.

John Amatruda has over 35 years of professional experience. As the leader of SOCOTEC’s Green Services department, he specializes in environmentally conscious design and the evaluation of “green” materials and systems. He has worked as a consultant on over 150 LEED projects nationwide and internationally, using all variations of the LEED commercial program. He also has authored a number of green building studies and publications, including the GSA LEED Cost Study for the US General Services Administration, the NYC Department of Buildings’ Energy Code Compliance Study, and the Green Material Selection Guidelines for the web-based Whole Building Design Guide. Mr. Amatruda has been a LEED Accredited Professional since 2001, and was the first LEED AP registered in the State of Connecticut. He was also one of the first 30 faculty members hired by the USGBC, and was named a LEED Fellow in 2013. He is also accredited as an Assessor under the United Kingdom’s BREEAM green building rating system for both New Construction and In-Use (Existing Buildings).

Greg Streiff is the Founder and CEO of The ESG Transition Company, with over 15 years of experience covering the energy and power sector, infrastructure broadly, and sustainability. Prior to founding the ESG Co, Greg led M&A and Business Strategy for PPL Corp’s (NYSE: PPL) renewable energy platform, Safari Energy. Greg started his career at Merrill Lynch, before moving into principal investing, corporate strategy roles at Denham Capital, Covanta, and the City of New York. Greg founded the ESG Co because he believes companies have a moral and fiduciary responsibility to take an all-the-above approach to corporate sustainability. He is passionate about helping ESG, EHS, Facility Managers, and Sustainability professionals and navigate all things ESG.

Jeff Hendler serves as Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Energy Technology Savings Inc., DBA Logical Buildings. Logical Buildings is the nationʼs leading provider of sustainability, carbon free virtual powerplant and smart building software for the built word. Our revolutionary technologies are enabling the Energy Transition and empowering residential and commercial energy users to earn money and reduce their carbon footprints, all from within user friendly, award-winning mobile apps. Our clients include more than 50 of the largest national real estate owners/managers and thousands of residential and other small energy users. Jeff represents Logical Buildings as Innovation Member of the Smart Cities Council and Board Member of Green Button Alliance. He also serves on the executive committee of the National Energy Marketers Association, as their Smart Grid Committee Chairman. In addition, he is an active voting member of the NYISO and PJM wholesale power grids. He also represents ETS as a member of the Consumer Electronics Association, NY Battery Energy Storage, and Clean Energy Business Network. Jeff is an acting advisor/member of the Wharton Energy Network, and a graduate of the Wharton School of Business.

Vicki Worden serves as President and CEO of the Green Building Initiative, an international nonprofit dedicated to reducing climate impacts by improving the built environment. She is co-author of Greener Data, a best selling book on Amazon that launched on April 22, 2022. She is the former chair of the National Institute of Building Sciences Consultative Council, which unifies the codes development and building industry and communicates to the U.S. Congress and Administration on commercial building priorities. She also serves as a judge of the U.S. DOE's Solar Decathlon. As a sustainability pro and entrepreneur, Worden has advanced objectives within a range of industries, including solar, wind, parking, furniture, mattress, composites, wood products and rainwater harvesting. During her tenure at GBI, she led this start-up organization into a thriving community that supports integration of sustainability and net zero, health and wellness, and resilience objectives throughout some of the largest real estate portfolios in the world. Through its Green Globes and federal Guiding Principles Compliance programs, GBI will have certified half a billion square feet of commercial and multifamily building space in North America and beyond during 2022. Worden holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from West Chester University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Loyola University Maryland and she is a graduate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organizational Management. She lives in Camden, Maine, where she feeds her soul with an abundance of hiking, skiing, swimming, and outdoor activities along with her husband and dogs. Learn more about the Green Building Initiative at thegbi.org, and connect with Worden on LinkedIn, Twitter, or via email at vworden@thegbi.org.

Nina is a Senior Manager in the Real Estate Investment team at Norges Bank Investment Management. Norges manages approximately $55 billion in real estate investments across listed REITs and direct investments in office, retail and logistics on behalf of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. Nina’s primary responsibilities includes the development and implementation of the fund’s ESG strategy across its global real estate portfolio. Since joining Norges Bank in 2013, Nina has been actively involved in building the global real estate business.

Corey has 10+ years of experience in Management Consulting, Energy, and Built Infrastructure. He works as a Senior Manager in Ramboll Management Consulting’s Strategy services, specifically focusing on climate resilience and decarbonization. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies on topics such as portfolio energy management, decarbonization strategies, reporting strategy, carbon accounting, and energy generation maintenance strategy. Corey brings a quantitative approach to strategy that allows for data-driven strategic decisions that prepare companies to face uncertainty. He combines this quantitative approach to decision analysis / strategic planning with current market trends to deliver realistic and actionable strategies.

Matthew Isaacs is a commercial real estate and proptech executive. Since 2019, Matthew has served as the Vice President of Business Development and Sales at Radiator Labs, where he dedicates his work to decarbonizing the world’s legacy buildings. At Radiator Labs, Matthew has established several key partnerships, developed a shared savings service model, and built a $100M+ sales and project pipeline. He previously led a sales team at Eastern Consolidated that completed over $150M in mid-market investment sales and development site transactions. Prior to joining Eastern Consolidated, Matthew spearheaded the redevelopment of a 75,000-square-foot factory building in Williamsburg into a modern office property now occupied by WeWork. Matthew has also rehabilitated and redeveloped several multifamily properties in New York City.