Program in Real Estate Judges NAREIT’s Sustainability Award

(Left) Sheldon Groner, Exec. VP, Finance & Operations NAREIT
(Right) Mark Vorreuter, PRE Adjunct Lecturer

The Program in Real Estate, (PRE), again participated as one of three judges in the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, (NAREIT), annual Leader in the Light Award, (LIL). The other two judges came from EPA’s Commercial Building Energy Star Program and the management company, Real Foundations. The PRE has provided one of three national judges each year since 2006.

The LIL award honors NAREIT member companies that demonstrate superior and sustained energy use practices and company-wide operations which generate substantially improved energy efficiency and expense management.
For the past three years the PRE judge has been Mark Vorreuter who is a PRE alumni and who is teaching a new graduate course called “Introduction to Green Real Estate”.

“This year the Intro to Green Real Estate class participated in the LIL judging by reviewing the 18 submissions and then conducting a round-robin process of presentations, discussion and voting. The class eventually arrived at a first, second and third place selection and three honorable mentions. I take this input into consideration when I am negotiating on the actual conference calls with the other judges from the EPA and Real Foundations” said Vorreuter. 

The Intro to Green RE class’s top 6 selections included five of the final LIL Award winners including the class’s 1st place selection, Thomas Properties Group, which was also selected for 1st place in the actual judging.

The integration of the LIL judging into the “Introduction to Green Real Estate” class provides an excellent opportunity to see what the nation’s most “sustainability-oriented” REITs are doing to save energy and improve their operations.  Kimberlee Swartz, Coordinator of Career Services for the Program in Real Estate, states, “As many NAREIT member companies will discover, Program in Real Estate students, particularly those focusing on ‘Sustainable Development’ make excellent interns and full-time hires.  They are familiar with LEED, Energy Star and the broad scope of activities that are categorized as Green Real Estate.” 

The Cornell Program in Real Estate offers a comprehensive, two-year professional degree in the field. Students at Cornell benefit from an encompassing core curriculum combined with a diverse selection of real estate electives allowing for niche specialization—while interacting with the largest on-campus real estate faculty in the country. Cornell is also home to the Cornell Real Estate Council, an extensive network of industry leaders, the Cornell Real Estate Review, real estate related research, and more.