PHILADELPHIA—Hersha Hospitality Trust, a self-advised Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), announced that the company was selected to receive NAREIT’s 2012 Lodging & Resorts Leader in the Light Award; the highest achievement for lodging and resort REITs in the 2012 award competition. This national award, presented annually by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), recognizes Hersha and its EarthView program for superior and sustained portfolio-wide energy use practices and sustainability initiatives.
Steve Wechsler, NAREIT’s CEO, recognized Hersha’s industry leadership in sustainability and presented Jay H. Shah, CEO of Hersha Hospitality Trust, with the Leader in the Light award at REITWorld 2012: NAREIT’s Annual Convention. EarthView, Hersha’s sustainability program, is the internal driver of the company’s success in managing and reducing its portfolio-wide energy use. Through the EarthView program, Hersha achieved reductions in energy, water and waste that lowered the company’s environmental impact while producing property-level savings.
New to this year, NAREIT’s executive board approved migrating its Leader in the Light award framework into the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) platform, which takes a data-driven approach to evaluating the sustainability performance of real estate companies. Applicants to the 2012 Leader in the Light competition were required to complete the GRESB survey, which counted toward 70 percent of each company’s total score, as well as a set of supplemental questions, which were evaluated by a panel of judges and comprised the remaining 30 percent of available points.
“We are very proud to be recognized in the same company as other winners such as Simon Property Group, HCP Inc. and Vornado Realty Trust, for the impact EarthView is making on the properties in our portfolio,” Shah said. “It is a testament to the value that comes from strategically integrating environmental and philanthropic initiatives into the core of our business practices. NAREIT’s recognition highlights the trend of institutional investors’ interest in sustainability and measureable, profitable results—which EarthView provides.”
