Advancing Partnerships to Better Buildings

Editor's Note: The blog introduces readers to Krista Sprenger, Vice President, Director of Sustainability for Lend Lease—  an international property and infrastructure group that was one of the first partners in President Obama's Better Buildings Challenge.

"The time is not far off when companies will have to justify their worth to society…with greater emphasis being placed on environmental and social impact than straight economics." - Lend Lease Founder, Dick Dusseldorp

Our founder had a basic principle that our company was part of the community and that we had a responsibility to focus on the environmental and the social value we might add. We strive to apply global best-practices and innovative, responsible environmental design initiatives and are committed to promoting energy efficiency, utilizing alternative energy sources with an overall target of designing communities that are zero net water, waste and carbon neutral. This is why partnering with the Department of Energy and the White House for the Better Buildings Challenge just made sense. 

To support the Better Buildings Challenge, Lend Lease has set a goal to reduce energy consumption by 20% within our Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) portfolio over the next 3-5 years. Our participation in the Better Buildings Challenge will mean more than 65.3 million square feet of real estate will be greener and in turn we will help American military families bring energy security home and most importantly create new jobs in the construction industry. 

Recently, representatives from all 10 Lend Lease projects met to validate their commitment to the program. An all-day meeting, focused on the goals and outcomes of the BBC, allowed all participants to understand the program and hear how their project can support. (BELOW) Participants from Lend Lease gather for a photo around the contract they all signed agreeing to do their part to help meet our goal.

To achieve our reduction goals, we are taking a three pronged approach as part of the Challenge. We will continue our green retrofit program, and have hired residential building science specialists, IBACOS, to help us assess our portfolio and ensure we are implementing innovative and customized whole building energy retrofit and management solutions which reduce consumption and offer more efficient homes. To reduce grid consumption we will be significantly broadening our solar portfolio as well as incorporate additional renewable power options such as wind and geothermal. Finally, we will begin an aggressive behavior management/energy consumption reduction program aimed at teaching the 140,000 people who live or work in one of our communities how they can best conserve energy within their home and take personal responsibility to support a sustainable environment. 

The Better Buildings Challenge allows Lend Lease to partner with like-minded organizations, like the Department of Energy, to support an initiative we strongly believe in. We are honored to be one of only 14 companies chosen to participate in the initial launch of the program, and look forward to continuing our partnership for years to come. 

Krista Sprenger is Vice President, Director of Sustainability for the Lend Lease Americas region