Five Years of Sustainability Growth, Thanks to Yardi Grant
Five years ago, IREM launched its Certified Sustainable Property (CSP) program. Since then, sustainability education and the CSP program have come a long way. As 2019 comes to a close, there are nearly 400 properties nationwide that boast the CSP certification and approximately 2,000 practitioners have been educated through IREM’s online energy management courses and attended energy data access workshops. Relevant, practical research has been conducted to identify the impact of sustainability on property value. And, IREM has been recognized as an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year in the Sustained Excellence category.
What made all this possible is a generous grant from Yardi, enthusiastically received and wisely invested, in each of the past five years. As IREM CEO Denise Froemming says in the November/December 2019 issue of The Journal of Property Management (JPM), “When IREM first received a Yardi Energy Efficiency Grant in 2014, we knew immediately that making an impact would require more than delivering a series of webinars and writing articles on energy efficiency. IREM needed to take a leadership role in sustainable real estate through imaginative programs that leveraged our research and insights on real estate management.”
Part of this commitment was the creation of a dedicated headquarters staff position, with Todd Feist assuming the role of sustainability program manager in 2014 and leading the way to advance the role of real estate management in sustainability through IREM’s grant-driven programs. On the volunteer side, a Sustainability Advisory Board was formed within IREM’s governance structure to engage subject-matter experts – among them members, sustainability consultants, and academics – in a meaningful way.
“We congratulate IREM and the Yardi Energy Efficiency Grant recipients for their tremendous progress to date. The entire industry will reap the benefits of their work,” said Akshai Rao, Yardi’s vice president of energy and procure to pay, who oversees the grant and collaborates with IREM on how to utilize the funds most productively. “We look forward to what’s ahead in the next half-decade and beyond, when new generations of property management software will optimize energy consumption with algorithms, machine learning and other innovations.”
“IREM is grateful to Yardi for five years of the Yardi Energy Efficiency Grant and our other areas of partnership,” says Froemming in JPM. “Stay tuned for more results, and join IREM and Yardi in this effort by advancing sustainability in your portfolios.”
About the Author
Nancye Kirk is chief strategy officer at IREM Headquarters in Chicago and supports IREM’s international, sustainability, and technology initiatives.