Editors’ Note

Named to her current post in August 2007, Sally Wilson is a licensed architect and the first commercial real estate broker in the United States to become a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accredited professional. With more than two decades’ experience in designing commercial interiors and base-building renovations, Wilson also serves as Senior Vice President in brokerage for CB Richard Ellis’ Washington, DC, office. The recipient of a BS in interior design and a master’s degree in architecture from Virginia Tech, she serves as CB Richard Ellis’ representative to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Company Brief

CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc., an S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm (in terms of 2006 revenue). With over 24,000 employees, the company serves real estate owners, investors, and occupiers through more than 300 offices worldwide (excluding affiliate and partner offices). CB Richard Ellis offers strategic advice and execution for property sales and leasing; corporate services; property, facilities, and project management; mortgage banking; appraisal and valuation; development services; investment management; and research and consulting. In 2007, CB Richard Ellis was named one of the 50 “best in class” companies by BusinessWeek, and one of the 100 fastest-growing companies by Fortune.

How do you define your role as CBRE’s Global Director of Environmental Strategy?

With its origins in corporate social responsibility, my role is to identify opportunities for our company to be more sustainable, not only by greening our own house, but also by helping our clients. We’ve made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2010, and we’re providing our clients with information on climate change, CO2 emissions in buildings, and other issues related to the building environment’s impact on our resources. Since we are the largest real estate company in the world, we see this as our responsibility. Specifically, my role is to develop internal policy, external service offerings, and educational programs through all of our service lines and businesses.

What are CBRE’s key environmental initiatives?

Our first focus is our commitment to be carbon neutral by 2010. We are verifying the carbon footprint of our 300-plus offices around the globe – roughly five million square feet of space – and adopting strategies to reduce that footprint. We are also implementing operational, management, and procurement strategies to help reduce waste and energy consumption, which will, in turn, help reduce our carbon footprint. From this experience, we are developing the expertise that can then be passed on to our clients, as they seek to green their companies. Clients across our service lines are asking for help, but the biggest opportunity is in our asset management services business. We manage 1.7 billion square feet of space around the globe, and our goal is to reduce energy used in those locations by 10 percent in 2008. If we can do so, we can save our clients $30 million. Plus, by decreasing the CO2 emissions of our buildings, we also have an opportunity to become part of the solution to climate change.

How are CBRE’s offices around the world addressing these issues?

Europe is ahead of the Americas, and our London office is spearheading our environmental initiatives for that region. They’re already pursuing ISO 14001, which is a management and operational designation. Their knowledge and experience is a great benefit to North America. There are also positive efforts in Australia. They’re doing great energy and water conservation work to deal with the climate crisis they face regionally. We’re fortunate to have proactive initiatives around the globe, which we can all learn from.

Is CBRE building partnerships with environmental organizations to further its initiatives?

We have a partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council [USGBC]. The USGBC has wonderful educational programs on climate change and CO2 verification, as well as their LEED Green Building Rating System, which can guide organizations in greening their existing buildings, new construction projects, and commercial and residential sites. We recently committed to place 100 of our managed properties in the LEED for Existing Buildings portfolio program. We also have a partnership with the National Resources Defense Council that helps us understand where environmental policy is going and how policy might affect our business. Moreover, in the U.S., we are working with the Environmental Protection Agency to implement Energy Star programs in every office building we manage that measures more than 100,000 square feet, which represents more than 125 million square feet of space. At this time, at least 100 buildings have achieved an Energy Star 75 rating, which means that they are in the top 25 percentile of their peer group.

When it comes to environmental issues, CBRE has clearly taken a leadership role in the real estate industry. Are these types of initiatives important across the industry as well?

CBRE is clearly way ahead of any other real estate service provider in this effort. We’re the only one to have made the commitment to be carbon neutral in a certain time frame, and we are looking to engage all of our clients in opportunities to green their facilities. I know of no other firm doing this. So the answer is, unfortunately, no, but the industry really needs to be doing this and hopefully they will follow CBRE’s lead.

Creating greener buildings is socially responsible. Is that sort of corporate citizenship also part of CBRE’s business strategy for the future?

That’s what corporate social responsibility is all about – effecting positive change for the world around you and for the company’s bottom line. There’s definitely a feel-good level to what we’re doing, but at the same time, if we don’t start to mitigate climate change now, we’re going to have real issues that will affect real estate in the next two or three business cycles. So this is also a business issue.