Greening the Bottom Line
A couple of years ago, Mark Peternell, then the new vice president of sustainability for Regency Centers, was certain that demand for all things “green” would soon be a primary driver for retailers.
But the economic landscape has changed, and leaner times mean that sustainability efforts may be taking a back seat to survival tactics. For some, green still equates to “more expensive” or “luxury.”
Not so at Regency. While all this happened around him, Peternell began to notice that, even though he may have overestimated demand for green efforts and LEED spaces on the retail side, he underestimated it on the capital side.
“That’s not to say we’re gaining or losing shareholders,” he says. “But they’re certainly paying closer attention. That’s based on the fact that we get both formal and informal inquiries from shareholders and analysts about what we’re doing.”
That, in turn, has given Peternell added encouragement to stay the course and stick to the commitments and goals that began with a green task force study group in late 2006. Using input from construction, development, operations and marketing, that group set its sights on establishing and incorporating higher environmental standards.
Smart water
Visit the shopping center developer’s website (www. regencycenters.com) and it’s hard to miss: The button for the company’s “greengenuity” program immediately catches the eye. The list of strategies runs the gamut from high-efficiency outdoor lighting to innovative storm water management.
What’s been making news for the company of late, though, is a pilot water conservation program that uses high-efficiency “smart” irrigation controllers to adjust watering schedules based on local weather conditions and other parameters. The product of choice was HydroPoint Data Systems’ WeatherTRAK.
Sharon Thompson, vice president of marketing for Petaluma, Calif.-based HydroPoint, says that within the real estate investment trust arena, Regency Centers “leads the nation” in embracing conservation, and that the company has done well to systematically develop efforts that “truly make a difference.
“What we’ve found in working with Mark is that Regency is focused on creating initiatives, but also on identifying whole programs around those initiatives to measure, manage, monitor and report the progress,” Thompson says.
“Take water, for example. It’s about the amount being used, the amount being saved and how that’s being reported out as ROI. It’s not only acres saved but money, as well. And finally, taking the money saved and applying it to other infrastructure projects. It’s very forward-thinking.”
Peternell says Regency’s pilot effort at 36 properties saved some $130,000 in its first year; with 90 properties now using the system, those savings are expected to jump to between $300,000 and $350,000 this year.
“This is all very calculated,” Thompson says. “There’s no smoke and mirrors. It’s truly fact-based.”
Other practices have been implemented along with the controllers to make it all run more smoothly, and Regency will continue to make changes at more of its 409 retail properties “as opportunities present themselves.”
