News
ENERGY ALLIANCE!
April 13, 2009
| Now that everyone's back from the holidays, we bring your attention to an exciting new coalition that launched at 7 World Trade Center Thursday. Bisnow was on hand for the unveiling of the Commercial Real Estate Energy Alliance, a partnership between BOMA International, the Department of Energy, and top real estate firms. |
 |
| Currently, commercial buildings account for 18% of consumption and emissions nationally, the DOE's Jerry Dion and Drury Crawley tell us. (They chose an environmentally friendly host, however— Silverstein's 7WTC is LEED Gold.) The event featured an executive roundtable with 19 companies on how to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases, attended by CBRE, Cushman, JLL, Vornado, Tishman Speyer, and the GSA. |
 |
| BOMA International heads Dick Purtell, Karen Penafiel, and Henry Chamberlain are quite the dedicated bunch, considering they took a break from their holiday vacations for the event. Henry tells us that this public-private partnership will be a significant braintrust for the market, and now they're in the recruitment stage to bring in even more companies. The alliance is part of the DOE's Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative, which aims to achieve market-ready, zero-energy commercial buildings by '25. |
 |
| Vornado's Carlos Lopez and Gaston Silva flank DC Vornado/Charles E. Smith counterpart Eddie Dunlap. They tell us that the New York office is working on LEED EB certification for five of its buildings this year and five next year, and is building a co-generation plant at its largest asset, One Penn Plaza. In DC, the firm just enrolled in a demand response program with Constellation Energy to reduce electrical loads during peak periods. |
 |
| Cushman & Wakefield's John Scott (of the firm's Miami office) and sustainability director Eleni Reed, who tells us that nationally, C&W is focusing on benchmarking all its properties to Energy Star standards. Its corporate offices are also aiming for LEED CI—its first,Atlanta, certified Gold. The firm is also moving its global HQ from 51 W. 52nd to the LEED-Silver 1290 Avenue of the Americas by the end of the year. |
 |
| Tishman Speyer director of sustainability Josh Feuer with JLL COO of global energy and sustainability services Diane Vrkic and managing director Jean Savitsky. Jean's been the project director for the uber-sustainable Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park for the past six years, and reports that the building is fully occupied with only a few tweaks left to go. |
