The retail industry has endured years of bumps and bruises from store closures, shrinking capital, and operational budgets. Added pressures from investors, consumers, and watchdogs who call out bad actors on regulatory and environmental misdeeds are leading retail companies large and small to change the way they do business. Forward-thinking companies are navigating this turbulent market by setting and implementing environmental and socially responsible practices
that are open to investors and the public.
To help more retail companies take action, the Landlord-Tenant Energy Partnership’s founding
partners the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), and the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), launched a multi-year effort starting in 2018 to host a series of guided discussions in collaboration with Connex (formerly PRSM) to educate and engage prominent retail landlords and tenants from across the United States.
These in-depth discussions allowed us to gather critical insights from property owners, facility managers, as well as energy and sustainability professionals representing 34 companies. As a result, IMT has produced the following report that identifies the six biggest hurdles these companies frequently encountered during efforts to plan and execute projects, and identified tangible solutions to enable a cascade of high-impact energy efficiency and sustainability actions to take in leased buildings that align with ESG or corporate social responsibility goals in brick and mortar locations.
