WashREIT Announces $350 Million of Green Bonds for Eligible Green Buildings that Achieve BREEAM Certification

WashREIT (NYSE: WRE) in Washington, D.C. recently announced an expansion of its Green Bond Framework for eligible green projects, including eight multifamily assets acquired in 2019. As outlined in WashREIT’s Green Bond Framework, WashREIT intends to achieve BREEAM In-Use Very Good certifications for the majority of these assets.

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WashREIT will allocate the majority of the proceeds to buildings that achieve BREEAM certification as part of its multipronged approach to address energy efficiency, water efficiency, and renewable energy projects. This commitment will be an essential part of WashREIT’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) roadmap, particularly for demonstrating alignment with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and other disclosure reporting frameworks. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, WashREIT’s commitment represents a part of the booming green bond market expected to exceed $1 trillion globally by the end of 2021.

“This is a momentous achievement for the US REIT market to recognize the caliber and rigor of the BREEAM certification program, particularly for WashREIT’s multifamily assets in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, said BREEAM Director Shamir Ghumra. “The challenge in meeting a Very Good certification, which represents the top 25% of BREEAM certified assets, demonstrates an important next step in WashREIT’s commitment to benchmarking, verifying, and sharing sustainability best practices across their portfolio. We applaud WashREIT as a trailblazer in the U.S. for this high-performance investment.”

WashREIT intends to move forward with BREEAM certification for The Assembly, a portfolio of seven multifamily properties across Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland, in addition to the Cascade at Landmark in Alexandria, Virginia. These eight properties represent roughly 2,400 units. The green bonds also come on the heels of WashREIT’s energy consumption reduction goal of 20% by 2025, below a 2015 baseline, mitigating the portfolio’s impact on climate change. As part of this effort, WashREIT will continue tackling environmental impacts of asset development, climate risk, waste management, and transportation.