Sustainability Master Plan & Implementation for International Real Estate & Workplace Portfolio

‍Approach/Challenges

After an initial sustainability infrastructure assessment in 2012 and a first master plan, this global technology leader, Global Fortune200, entered a period of intense organic and external growth, marked by the successive acquisitions of CCE (Brazil) in 2013, IBM X-Server in 2015 (49 facilities worldwide), and Motorola Mobility in 2016 from Google.  

Each of these acquisitions was completed with a focus on ESG and Sustainability to please both the U.S. regulator authorizing these transactions and the local communities while executed with modern, efficient and frugal portfolio management practices enhanced by key real estate and workplace strategy initiatives. The sustainable performance of the resulting portfolio and the overall international workplace strategy has been managed by Altanova (e.g. systematic real-time energy submetering and monitoring for all large sites, an array of powerful technological integrations introduced, piloted, and deployed within the portfolio by Altanova, and a precise International Design Guidelines and continuous upgrade and enforcement) leaving the company little margin to capture additional “low-hanging fruit” energy savings. Nevertheless, in 2020, the company set new ambitious carbon reduction goals aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to reduce the company’s carbon footprint by an additional 50% by 2030, compared to its 2018/19 baseline. Altanova was challenged to define a cost-effective pathway to achieve these goals.

‍Results

Altanova conducted additional benchmark surveys, targeted audits and developed advanced energy and financial models for approximately 60 company sites worldwide. Models include operational improvements and capital upgrades to existing sites that achieve deep energy efficiency savings based on best-in-class infrastructure management approach, as well as new and emerging technologies; on-site installation of smart microgrids hosting larger capacity of solar photovoltaic panels; investment into new off-site solar PV installation within the same grid through energy purchase agreements; and direct purchases of electricity from existing renewable energy plants.  

This approach was integrated with previous Altanova-developed Smart Workplace strategy that allowed the group to reduce its real estate footprint by 25% while significantly increasing employees’ satisfaction with their workplace and perceived productivity.  

The resulting Roadmap includes multiple viable pathways with attractive ROI but also large capital investments that are often unattractive to large organizations whose business isn’t historically centered on power infrastructures and real estate developments.

At this point, Altanova’s established credibility and deep culture of caring partnership played a key role by allowing the opportunity to engage several internal functions and executive stakeholders around a common vision within the company to uncover “submerged strategic value” associated with Real Estate & Infrastructures’ decarbonization plan, culture and the role of the workplace in general.  

The innovative business approach associated with our “all-hands-on-deck” decarbonization master plan, results in a vastly superior business case, financeable and highly beneficial to the overall company growth.  

In return, this holistic and business-embedded approach to the company’s sustainability transformation allows our client to invest further, and in complete business synergy, into their ambitious ESG and sustainability goals to develop further stakeholders’ engagement and efficiency.