RILA: Green Lease teams landlords and tenants toward sustainability

Washington, D.C. -- A first-of-its-kind document could go a long way toward cementing the sustainability relationship between retailer tenants and their shopping center landlords.



The Retail Industry Leaders Association and the Institute for Market Transformation are releasing the Retail Green Lease Primer, which helps merchants and landlords improve the efficiency of their retail facilities. The Retail Green Lease Primer is a tool developed with significant input from national owners and retailers to educate real estate and leasing agents on the specific retail lease provisions necessary for achieving energy, waste, and water use — and cost — reductions.



“Retailers recognize that there are opportunities to improve the efficiency of the buildings they lease,” said Adam Siegel, VP sustainability & retail operations, RILA. “Green leasing is a tool to help do that.”



For the past two years, a select lineup of U.S.-based retailers and landlords have collaborated to identify the opportunities for more sustainable facilities and the barriers to achieving them. They have identified the lease as a pivotal mechanism to promote sustainability. Through the Retail Green Lease Primer, RILA and its members, together with IMT, have begun to define "green leasing" for the industry: namely, the provisions in retail leases that reduce the costs associated with energy, water, waste, and other resource use.



Already, retail landlords are seeing the value that green leasing can provide. In February, Pyramid Management Group’s Destiny USA property received LEED Gold certification; now Pyramid is actively working with its retail tenants to improve their energy, water, waste, and indoor air quality performance, creating a more comfortable shopping environment and reducing costs.



When it comes to investing in technologies and processes that promote more efficient and sustainable facilities, owners and retail tenants often don't know how to start the conversation. The Retail Green Lease Primer aims to solve this problem by presenting the 13 most important lease topics in a clear and simple format. View the resource here.