Clarion Partners is excited to be among the first 25 firms in the industry to align with Urban Land Institute’s
(ULI) Greenprint Net Zero Carbon Operations Goal, which aims to reduce CRE properties’ operational carbon emissions to net zero by the year 2050. This alignment represents a large step forward in achieving our ESG Goals. Read the press release posted by ULI here.
The driver behind ULI’s Greenprint Net Zero goal began in 2018 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world needs to halve CO2 emissions by around 2030 and reach net-zero CO2 emissions by mid-century. Without this reduction in CO2 emissions, the world would continue to warm at an increasingly harmful rate. Despite this urgency, functioning at current emissions levels is expected to use up our carbon budget in just over nine years. Additionally, the budget for staying below the 2-degree threshold is expected to be exhausted in about 26 years. To combat this, ULI developed its Greenprint Goal to encourage its members to achieve net zero carbon operations by 2050.
ULI defines Net Zero Carbon and carbon neutral buildings as having minimized greenhouse gas emissions at all stages. This also means that emissions that do occur are balanced by climate positive initiatives so that the net carbon footprint over time is zero. To date, current members aligned to this goal have improved energy efficiency and reduced year over year greenhouse gas emissions by over 46%. Additionally, these firms are on track to meet ULI’s original goal of 50% carbon reduction by 2030.
There are a number of top strategies to achieve net zero by 2050, including but not limited to:
