Earth Day
Dive into ULI resources, Urban Land articles and more covering environmental insights in the real estate industry.
ULI and its members are committed to fostering excellence in environmental stewardship through decarbonization and building climate resilience while empowering local communities to cultivate sustainability. This landing page serves as a central resource, providing CRE professionals with a wealth of tools and insights to drive meaningful change. Engage with ULI Product Councils and advisory services, access educational courses and certificates, stay updated through Urban Land magazine, and leverage cutting-edge research to stay ahead of the curve in real estate and climate change.
Members of the press interested in speaking with our experts in sustainability and resilience can email [email protected].
ULI RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
ULI C Change Transition Risk Assessment Guidelines
The ULI C Change Transition Risk Assessment Guidelines outline a standardized approach to assess and disclose climate transition risks as part of property valuations. We believe the adoption of these guidelines by owners and managers in the industry can help remove a critical barrier and enable us to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
ULI Developing Resilience Toolkit
View the initial, interactive search and reference tool for development, design, and sustainability teams or other stakeholders to quickly understand design and operational strategies that mitigate risks caused by natural hazards, their potential effects on costs and maintenance, and the co-benefits these strategies can bring.
Pumping Up Sustainability: Myth-Busting Heat Pumps in Commercial Real Estate
This report seeks to convey up-to-date information about electric heat pump technology, to equip real estate practitioners with the knowledge they need to inquire about heat pumps in new and existing projects. Heat pumps are able to both heat and cool spaces. They offer an electric, low-carbon alternative to gas furnaces, boilers, and air-conditioning (AC) units, acting as all-in-one heating and cooling mechanisms that run in both modes of operation.
Physical Climate Risks and Underwriting Practices in Assets and Portfolios
This report from the Urban Land Institute and LaSalle Investment Management builds on their previous report, How to Choose, Use, and Better Understand Climate Risk Analytics, to describe how leading firms are leveraging physical climate-risk data in underwriting practices. With insight into asset- and portfolio-level risk becoming increasingly easy to obtain, new challenges lie in effective interpretation and integration of information into investment practices. Relying on research and interviews with industry leaders, this report provides a nuanced exploration of this emergent issue.
Get Smart: The Business Case for Grid Interactive, Efficient Buildings
Get Smart: The Business Case for Grid-Interactive, Efficient Buildings addresses the imperative for constructing and retrofitting buildings to enhance their resilience, responsiveness to grid conditions, and energy efficiency.
ULI Global Green Building Policy Dashboard
This dashboard serves as a quick reference allowing real estate practitioners to filter by location and see a summary of key requirements related to building certifications, greenhouse gas emissions, embodied carbon, energy, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and resilience.
ULI Global Sustainability Outlook 2024
The Sustainability Outlook annual publication, first launched in 2021, is an opportunity for ULI to share insights from member experts on the key environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that will impact strategic real estate and land use decision-making each coming year.
Scorched: Extreme Heat and Real Estate
The report provides an overview of extreme heat’s connections to the built environment and an in-depth discussion of heat mitigation and adaptation strategies related to building design, building materials, green infrastructure and public space design. These strategies can “future-proof” real estate in vulnerable markets; lower operations and management costs; improve tenant and occupant experience; and otherwise differentiate a real estate project.
Receiving Community
This report introduces real estate owners, developers, and investors to understand why and how to implement healthy, sustainable building materials in new and existing development projects. Get insight on high-level strategies and best practices for integrating nontoxic, low-carbon materials, and dive into innovative projects that successfully incorporated healthier materials.
Net Zero for All
An introduction for real estate owners, developers, and investors to understand why and how to center marginalized communities in the process and outcomes of achieving net zero.
How to Choose, Use, and Better Understand Climate-Risk Analytics
Establishing a shared understanding of climate risks and opportunities is a foundational step to ensuring investment performance now and into the future. How to Choose, Use, and Better Understand Climate-Risk Analytics provides insight to the global real estate industry on how to interpret climate-risk analytics, identify risks effectively, and incorporate them in decision-making throughout the investment life cycle.
Change is Coming: Climate Risk Disclosures and the Future of Real Estate Investment Decision-Making
Are you prepared for proposed climate-risk disclosure regulations? In this report, ULI and Heitman examine the impact on real estate investors of new reporting requirements—stemming from existing and proposed government mandates for climate-related risks disclosures related to properties and overall business models. Gain insight into key strategies investors can use to optimize their portfolios and best position themselves in the market now and as the future regulatory environment unfolds.
State of Green: Greenprint Performance Report, Vol 14
The global real estate industry continues to progress toward net zero despite an uncertain economic environment. Explore the industry’s resilient progress towards net zero in our latest report.
Transportation Transformations
This report explores the vital connections between transportation, health, resilience, and real estate development. Learn about promising examples of efforts to reconnect communities through multimodal transportation investments, parks, equitable development, and more.
Mapping ESG
Are you keeping up with new ESG reporting requirements? Explore how Mapping ESG presents a concise global overview of essential ESG reporting standards, examines their purpose, intended users, and offers best practices to streamline the reporting process.
ULI Net Zero Imperative Charlotte: A Roadmap to Net Zero for New Commercial Buildings
*This report is part of the Advisory Services program.
The goal of this Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) was to identify ways to encourage developers to create a net zero road map for new commercial development. The panel used city, state, federal and utility programs to provide examples of programs successfully implemented in other jurisdictions.
Building Resilience Ecosystems: A Model for Delivering Climate Resilience to All Communities
*This report is part of the Advisory Services program.
The purpose of this Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) is to assess how to best deliver resilience through real estate development and associated activities across communities, building upon the example of the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC), the first of its kind in Los Angeles. This TAP report creates a plan and recommendations to catalyze and assist with the development of community-led resilience hubs and networks, making climate resilience accessible to all residents in Los Angeles and beyond.
The Materials Movement: Creating Value with Better Building Materials
This webinar, based on a report published by ULI by the same title, aims to provide foundational knowledge on this issue. Attendees will walk away with a deeper understanding of the science behind material impacts on people and planet, the business case for better material choices, and strategies for reducing embodied carbon and improving material health in development.
EXCLUSIVELY ON URBAN LAND
How Real Estate Professionals Are Using Climate Risk Data to Make Business Decisions
The implications of climate change are becoming hard to ignore. The frequency of natural disasters has increased significantly in recent years, with the United States experiencing an average cost of $18 billion–plus from climate disasters per year. As these kinds of events have grown more common, calculating climate risk has become a hugely important task for commercial property owners.
Making Progress on Net Zero, But a Long Way to Go
Eight years ago, the landmark Paris Agreement kicked off a worldwide campaign to reduce carbon emissions. The targets set were big: slash emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and be net zero by 2050. So far, the world is not making enough progress on those lofty goals, and the progress that has been made has been very unevenly distributed.
Assessing the Impact of the SEC’s New Climate Disclosure Rules on the Real Estate Industry
In early March 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued new rules requiring public companies to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures. The rules phase in over time, requiring the largest companies or public investor shares to begin making climate risk disclosures in 2025.
Embodied Carbon Influencing Decision-Making at Earlier Stages
Real estate developers across the United States and around the world are under pressure to cut the amount of carbon their activities put into the atmosphere. Multiple municipalities and potential investment partners demand that developers report—and, in many instances, also reduce—the amount of embodied carbon released in the process of developing a real estate project.
The Hottest Year on Record: What It Means for CRE
ULI has compiled our best reports, webinars, articles, and case studies covering what you need to know about how the hottest year on record is going to affect the industry. The information below will help you plan for the future and mitigate the effects of our warming planet on your buildings and business.
ULI LEARNING COURSES & BOOKS
Net Zero Real Estate: Renovating and Building for Profitability
Learn about the process of renovating existing commercial buildings, as well as greenfield developments, to a Zero Net Energy Bill and Operational Carbon Neutrality.
Introduction to Climate Risk & Resilience
Learn how developers, designers, and policymakers are reducing the impacts of climate change while enhancing economic stability and social outcomes.
The Case for Open Space
Explore the benefits of private-sector involvement in creating, maintaining, operating, and programming parks and open space.
ENGAGE WITH ADVISORY SERVICES & PRODUCT COUNCILS
Member Opportunity
Engage with Advisory Services
ULI’s Advisory Services Program (ASP) pairs the brightest minds in real estate with the toughest problems facing our cities. Convening cross-disciplinary real estate leaders for immersive, on-site panels, ASP panels produce a set of impactful recommendations to address economic development and revitalization, housing attainability, community resilience, and so much more. Watch this video to learn more about the impact ASP panels bring to their communities.
Full Member Opportunity
Sustainable Development Council (SDC)
The Sustainable Development Council (SDC) aims to accelerate the adoption and implementation of sustainability, resiliency, and health across the real estate industry. The council provides a forum for exchange of emerging best practices including planning, financing, entitlements, design, construction, and operational aspects of projects that advance triple bottom-line benefits while fostering more sustainable built environments.
Full Member Opportunity
Redevelopment and Reuse Council (RRC)
The mission of the Redevelopment and Reuse Council is to explore, across all product types, best practices and lessons learned in the disciplines of rehabilitation, green retrofits, and adaptive reuse of existing buildings, as well as the redevelopment of brownfields and greyfields.
GET INVOLVED AT ULI
Explore the Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate
In collaboration with ULI members and partners, the center drives industry transformation, cultivates leaders and champions, and helps foster solutions for sustainable, resilient, healthy, and equitable cities and communities. The center pursues these goals via cutting-edge research, global convenings, community technical assistance, and other strategies.
The center’s core programs are:
·Decarbonization: Accelerating progress toward net zero with operational and embodied carbon real estate solutions.
·Healthy Places: Advancing health and social equity in real estate practice, and helping cities and communities foster inclusive well-being.
·Urban Resilience: Ensuring that buildings, cities, and communities are better prepared for the impacts of climate change.
The center is also home to ULI Greenprint, a global alliance of real estate companies dedicated to improving the environmental performance of buildings and enhancing real estate value.
Contribute to Urban Land Magazine
The magazine welcomes article ideas and/or authorship from members who can leverage their expertise and share lessons learned with the magazine’s professionally and geographically diverse audience. Articles must not be self-promotional, but rather should present land use ideas, techniques, and examples that advance knowledge and best practices among ULI members.
Become a Greenprint Member
With 125+ real estate members to date, the Greenprint community of practice connects regularly on new technologies, ideas, and partners with one another to advance sustainability in real estate. The value of Greenprint membership spans networking, leadership, data tracking, and connectivity to broader ULI efforts.
To learn more about becoming a Greenprint member, contact [email protected].
Meet the Resilient Land Use Cohort
This Cohort convenes member leaders and community actors to identify strategies to be more resilient in the face of climate change. Learn more here and read about the first cohort’s work and impact.
Discover Your District Council
If you are interested in finding local events, connect with your District Council.
Drive Change with a Gift to the Foundation
Join us in celebrating Earth Day by making a meaningful impact! Your donation to the ULI Foundation supports vital initiatives aimed at creating sustainable, resilient communities worldwide. By investing in our cities’ future today, you’re contributing to innovative solutions that address climate risk, promote green infrastructure, enhance urban livability, and more! Together, let’s build a healthier, more sustainable world for generations to come.
GET THE LATEST INSIGHTS RELATED TO THE ENVIRONMENT
