Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT 1.10%) might just be the most sustainability-focused real estate investment trust in the market, relying on 100% green energy to power its properties, among other improvements it has made to be environmentally friendly. In this Fool Live video clip, recorded on Jan. 28, Empire State's CFO Christina Chiu explains why this focus actually gives the company a big competitive advantage.
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Matt Frankel: So, one other thing I wanted to talk to you that you mentioned earlier and because it's a real point of pride for the company as your efforts on sustainability. If I can ask about that real quick.
You mentioned that it gives you somewhat of a competitive advantage these days because you upgraded the air filtration, made the buildings a lot cleaner. But I want to say the only REIT that is fully powered by green energy if I'm not mistaken there.
Christina Chiu: We are, yes.
Frankel: Can you talk about your sustainability efforts and why that's such a point of pride in that advantage for you?
Chiu: The company has been focused on sustainability for over a decade. Thank you for pointing out 100% renewable energy power for the portfolio. But over a decade ago, the Empire State Building was already 100% renewable power and I recall people used to tell that to people and people would be like, "Okay, whatever."
As ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] has grown in importance, you see the funds flows. It's something that's really on the map and it really matters. We started getting inbound calls when we announced that a 100% of the portfolio was renewable powered. I think ESG is something that's really coming to the forefront because people care about sustainability efforts, and we want to see what we're doing and we're leaders on that. So, we use our portfolio as a way to test new technologies. We have commitments to carbon neutrality, and we're constantly doing work to up the ante and invest.
By doing so, we're providing our tenants a way to achieve their ESG objectives. They get to benefit from our carbon commitments. It means they get to meet theirs and we get to provide a lot of the savings onto them. There's a lot of synergies and it's a real differentiator for us. It's something we believe in, and it makes commercial sense and it's something we really take pride in, and we focus on.
