NAIOP Washington State’s Sustainable Development Committee elected to undertake a hot topic for 2023: Adaptive Reuse. The buzz is everywhere, so how do we synthesize that broad topic into bite size chunks? On April 6, 78 attendees took on that task with great energy.

Stormwater Goals: Slow, Clean, and Cold

Development projects in the Puget Sound region are generating more conversations about stormwater management than ever before. In many ways the Pacific Northwest is on the leading edge in terms of both regulatory updates and elective sustainable design measures implemented by local developers. Every year projects look more progressive than the prior year, and stormwater has become a much more integral part of site design for urban infill projects.

AMLI Residential is a market leader in sustainability whose projects include over 44 LEED and 42 Energy Star certifications and was named 2020’s LEED Outstanding Developer of the year. This spring the NAIOPWA Sustainable Development Committee sat down with Matt Elley of AMLI Residential to get his thoughts on the current market in terms of sustainability and what the future could and should bring for multi-family development.

With state and local energy codes marching unflinchingly towards a zero-carbon future, projects seeking to show deep sustainability commitments by going beyond energy code requirements are faced with fewer compelling design options. This may be especially true for large scale projects or multi-building developments, many of which have unique constraints on space and more limited system options. Efficiency focused electric district energy systems, or low-carbon energy districts, have been seeing more widespread adoption in the Pacific Northwest and can help fill this unique niche.

What are low-carbon energy districts?

Image courtesy of McKinstry

Low-carbon energy districts are communities of buildings connected via common energy infrastructure and systems, designed and operated together with a common goal of reducing carbon emissions and utility energy usage. They include many or all of the following attributes:

What does it mean to go first? In celebration of NAIOPWA’s Night of the Stars inaugural “Sustainable Development of the Year” category, here is a closer look at the two nominees, each of whom elected to be on the front edge of sustainable real estate development. Read below to learn more about these two industry-leading endeavors.

What is the first thing many developers or investors think when they hear the words “sustainable” or “green” as their architects describe their building design? For decades the common perception has been that it is difficult (if not impossible) to make a deeply green building pencil financially. However, by definition “sustainability” is the nexus of environmental, social and economic progress. We interviewed key participants representing both Watershed and Inspire at the Russell W. Young Building to learn how they overcame perception to create these very special properties.

Investing in people could be one of the most inexpensive ways to invest in our businesses.

With target dates for code implementation changing quickly, this webinar is a must for NAIOPWA members. Our experts will cover the three new pieces of legislation upping the ante for energy efficiency throughout Washington state for both new construction and retrofits: the Seattle Energy Code, the Washington State Energy Code commercial section, and the state's new Energy Performance Standard for [Existing] Commercial Buildings.

One critical aspect of sustainability is resiliency, or how we bounce back from natural disasters. A little preparation can go a long way—but a lack of forethought can quickly lead to very difficult situations throughout a city or region. Remember the 2015 New Yorker article about the next big Cascadia earthquake? When the article was published, it prompted seemingly endless, yet interesting, discussions about the inevitability of a very large earthquake in the region, as well as dozens of follow-up stories giving advice on how to prepare. 

Fast-forward four years to Seattle Snowmaggedon 2019. Did you have a week’s supply of food and water in your home when the snow fell last February? Conditions weren’t anywhere near as bad as the name suggests, but empty grocery store shelves made a deep impression, whether you saw them in person like I did or on social media or the news. Those empty-shelf encounters were a fairly common experience. The takeaway is that there is only a few days’ food supply in our grocery stores, which is quickly exacerbated by disaster-inspired hoarding behavior and the breakdown of efficient but lean supply chains.

It pays to go green!
Sustainability is becoming ever more important in the development of and investment in commercial real estate (CRE) due to several factors:

• Increased attention to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues at the corporate level.
• Increased interest from the real estate investment community in ESG aspects of development.
• Demographic impact of millennials placing a greater importance on environmental and social issues.

Corporate Interest in Sustainability via the ESG framework

NAIOPWA’s Sustainable Development Committee held its fourth annual Change Makers event on June 27, 2019. The event brings together voices from a diverse group of local change-making organizations making social, environmental, and economic impacts, and establishing Seattle as a leader in sustainable development and beyond. The goal was to pool our collective wisdom, challenge assumptions, reach across boundaries, and explore what's possible when everyone pulls in the same direction.

A drought emergency for half of Washington State was declared in April and expanded in May. The drought is expected to impact the Olympic peninsula, the North Cascades, the eastern Cascades and southwest Washington. Seattle, Tacoma and Everett may also experience moderate drought.

Welcome to the first post of NAIOPWA's new Sustainability Mindset Blog, presented by the Sustainability Committee. The committee would like to further the discussion of sustainability with the greater NAIOPWA community and help nurture a sustainability mindset. We will produce a new post every couple of months, so please check back periodically for your next dose of content. You can also download the NAIOPWA app, follow NAIOPWA on Twitter, and subscribe to NAIOPWA's weekly email updates to be alerted when new posts go live.