Building Energy Disclosure: Policy Trends and Market Impacts

The Guarini Center and a group of leading experts had a discussion on “Building Energy Disclosure: Policy Trends and Market Impacts.”

In 2009, New York City enacted a pioneering energy disclosure policy, Local Law 84, which requires large buildings to submit annual energy benchmarking data. Today, a number of stakeholders have begun to consider how Local Law 84 might be updated and the City Council introduced legislation on the subject this past summer. At this upcoming breakfast meeting, leading industry experts will consider the impact that energy disclosure regulations in New York City and elsewhere have had and how these policies may be reformed.

The speakers:

Daniel Egan, Vice President, Head of Sustainability and Utilities, Vornado Realty Trust

Helen Gurfel, Executive Director, Urban Land Institute Greenprint Center for Building Performance

Brad A. Molotsky, Partner, LEED AP-OM, Duane Morris LLP

Dana Schneider, Managing Director, JLL

This event is hosted in collaboration with:

Speakers biographies:

Daniel Egan is Vice President of Sustainability and Utilities for Vornado Realty Trust. Dan’s sustainability program combines environmental, fiscal and social responsibility for Vornado’s national real estate portfolio.

Special projects under Dan’s jurisdiction include all LEED and Energy Star affiliated programs, and he also acts as Vornado’s advocate in New York for all NYSERDA and Con Edison energy incentive programs. Of particular importance is Dan’s managing of Vornado’s Energy Efficiency Capital Improvement fund, which executes projects with measurable energy reduction targets. The projects are part of a retrofit cycle for Vornado’s existing portfolio that includes energy audits and retrocommissioning, third party design and validation of retrofit projects, project management, and measurement and verification.

Another part of Dan’s role focuses on Vornado’s response to emerging trends in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) for the real estate industry. These ESG trends include topics in occupant health and indoor environmental quality, securing corporate debt in the form of green bonds, and the growing interest from the investor base in the management of Vornado’s carbon footprint.

Dan serves on the boards of the Building Energy Exchange, REBNY Sustainability Committee and is co-President of the New York Energy Consumers Council in NYC. He is also an active member of the GRESB Benchmark Committee and the Real Estate Roundtable’s Sustainable Policy Advisory Committee.

Helen Gurfel is the executive director of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Greenprint Center for Building Performance. Greenprint is an alliance of leading real estate owners, investors, and strategic partners committed to improving the environmental performance of the global real estate industry. As the executive director, she is responsible for the overall management and growth of the center.

Helen was most recently a director of GE Capital Real Estate’s global sustainability group, where she spearheaded a number of initiatives, including development of sustainability programs for GE’s portfolios in France, Canada, and the U.K., establishment of a rooftop solar program to deploy solar installations across properties in North America and the U.K., and incorporation of innovative technologies into GE-owned properties. She was also a member of GE Capital Real Estate’s global valuation team and GE Energy Financial Services’ portfolio management team. Previously, she was a principal consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Helen received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Columbia University, an MBA from the Wharton School, and a masters in international studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.

Brad A. Molotsky practices in the area of real estate law. Mr. Molotsky’s primary practice is focused in the areas of commercial leasing, acquisitions and divestitures, property management, financing and real estate joint ventures (including mixed-use development). He also has deep experience in board governance and managing public company issues such as enterprise risk, internal audit, compensation, proxy statement preparation and review, as well as energy efficiency and sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Prior to joining Duane Morris and for nearly 20 years, Brad served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Brandywine Realty Trust. At Brandywine, Mr. Molotsky was responsible for all legal operations of the company, including acquisitions and divestitures, financings, joint ventures, board matters, insurance procurement, litigation oversight, SEC filing oversight and the legal aspects of capital raising. During his tenure, the company grew from 40 buildings to approximately 300 buildings, totaling 28 million square feet

Mr. Molotsky was named general counsel of the year by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2014 and NJBIZ in 2013 and was awarded the Martin Luther King Community Service award in 2014.

Mr. Molotsky is a 1989 cum laude graduate of Villanova University Law School, where he was Order of the Coif, and also earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Villanova University. He is a 1986 cum laude graduate of the University of Delaware. Mr. Molotsky has also earned his LEED AP O+M certification. He also has earned an AV Preeminent® peer review rating from Martindale-Hubbell®.

Dana Schneider leads JLL’s Energy and Sustainability Projects team nationally and heads the Northeast division in a region anchored by New York City, Boston, and Washington DC. Her focus is on energy performance optimization as well as the development and implementation of energy and sustainability programs for a broad range of clients and project types. She specializes in comprehensive energy and sustainability programs and associated ROI; and LEED and WELL certification for new buildings, existing building retrofits, and portfolios as well as commercial interiors. Ms. Schneider joined JLL in January 2002.

Ms. Schneider led the whole-building energy retrofit of the Empire State Building and achieved LEED EBOM Gold certification for the most famous office building in the world in 2011. This major initiative uses a groundbreaking analytical model for maximizing energy and environmental value per dollar spent, which she was instrumental in developing. Ms. Schneider has replicated this energy optimization process in dozens of projects across the U.S. In addition to her continuing innovative sustainability performance optimization work at the Empire State Building, she manages energy and sustainability aspects of commercial office, mixed use, convention center, entertainment/hospitality, schools, and mission critical facilities across the country and has led energy and sustainability assignments at over 80 million square feet of properties and hundreds of projects in the Northeast alone.