Social Investors Join Cities to Finance Neighborhood Green Initiatives

Municipal financing authorities are teaming up with mission-driven investors to create bond programs, which pay for green building initiatives.

Typically, the cities issue the bonds in order to help pay for upgrades to homes and buildings, which will make them more energy efficient.

Socially responsible investors are buying these bonds because they pay fixed returns while simultaneously funding the investors’ real estate sustainability goals.

Case in point:

The New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority and  Community Capital Management have created one of the latest of these financing programs, also designated for funding neighborhood scale green initiatives. The article highlights the use of the Home Energy Rating System in order to determine the kinds of energy efficiency improvements which will result in upgraded homes qualifying for Energy Star ratings.

What’s interesting here is that the article reflects how local governments are able to be significant green finance players by combining stimulus funding available to them with innovative fixed income financing programs — backed by the powerful SRI market, which has not been as affected by the economic downturn as  many traditional private market capital providers.

The benefits? As one investor put it:

“When urban areas have good schools, job opportunities, an adequate supply of housing, safe and reliable transportation, and low crime rates, they become attractive places for families to live and businesses to set up shop. Robust communities reduce the pressure on the environment associated with sprawl.”

Be on the lookout for more growth in this form of capital to pay for the of our neighborhoods. Over the next few years, it will be interesting to follow these financing initiatives to see which programs and cities do the best job of achieving the energy efficiency increase and carbon emissions reductions that they now seek.

Photo credit: Greenforall.org/Flickr

John Knott and Andrew Nelson Show RPI in Action

Greetings from the Miami International Airport Island Grill, which — given my options — is currently rocketing up my three item list of decent airport food!

I had the opportunity to attend a great talk by John Knott, of the Noisette Company,  here at the ULI Fall Meeting. Hearing him reminded me that there are a couple of great reports currently in circulation that Green Journey readers should be reading, if you haven’t already obtained them through your other channels.  They are must reads for all of us who want to use responsible property investing — incorporating applied approaches to social responsibility within our professional real estate activities.

Item 1: The Noisette Company Sustainability Report

John Knott and his company’s work with the Navy Yards Project is a great living case study in revitalization with social justice at its core.  Another cool point to keep in mind as you read is that the Noisette Company is a 100 year old family development business. Knott made it clear that the sustainable and socially conscious principles that they apply are not anything new-fangled or exotic, as many investors fear about sustainable real estate. The approaches are actually as old school as they come.

Item 2: RREEF Research Report: Globalization and Global Trends in Green Real Estate Investment

All of my USGBC-NCC colleagues out there remember the great talk RREEF’s Andrew Nelson gave about global greening trends at our chapter meeting earlier this month. Well, that upcoming report he alluded to is now finally out and official.  Download / read / apply / pass it along.

UN ’s New Report on Responsible Property Investing

Today, multiple posts are required just to stay on top of the good news onslaught.

Earlier this year, I put out a bunch of posts about the good work of the Responsible Property Investing Center and why it is so critical for spreading the principles of triple bottom line investing within commercial real estate.

Now, we’ve learned through Dr. Gary Pivo, that the UN has just issued a new, stronger report cataloging the many successes institutional investors have enjoyed applying the principles of responsible property investing.  It also urges the rest of the investment real estate community to work harder to adopt its Principles for Responsible Investment.

Still mulling over whether triple bottom line investing would make a difference to your portfolio’s returns? Then you should definitely take a look. I think the terms ‘triple bottom line’ or ‘environmental, social, and governance’ tends to trip up some of our old school colleagues.

When you read through the principles plus the examples of day to day actions most of the signatories are taking across their portfolios, however,  it becomes pretty clear: RPI simply represents good management practices.

Already have some experience with applying responsible property investing across your asset portfolio? By all means, speak up! The rest of us would love to hear about it.