 Welcome everybody to what I think is going to be a great conversation with three really fantastic panelists. I, my name is Ruben Tag. I work at PGM Real Estate in the Impact and Responsible Investments Group. We manage the impact investing that comes out of the general account from Prudential. And we are really excited and I'm really excited to talk about something, a topic that is closely related to impact investing. And I think in many ways builds on some of the work that many of us have been doing in the field in over the last decade plus. But has kind of taken a lot of the thinking around impact and brought it to a really different level in terms of asset allocation and management. And I've got three people here today who know a lot more about that than I do to talk about it. And I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Please feel free to put some questions into the chat. We are going to have a Q&A time at the end. And I'd love to be able to get to some audience questions. So, you know, share as much as you like. And with that said, why don't we get into it? Our panelists are Christy Hill, who is the head of, head of America's asset management and the global head of ESG at PGM Real Estate. She's been responsible for leading the way internally on the creation and implementation of our ESG strategy, along with all of her other responsibilities for asset management across across the United States and Latin America for the company. And so she's got a great view on how you can tie together, you know, ESG thinking with kind of the work that she's done over her long career in asset management. Joining us as well is Shuba Maheshwari with Verdani Partners. Shuba has over a decade of experience in sustainable real estate, ESG and architecture. She's worked across a number of different large real estate portfolios, not just PGM Real Estate, which is one of Verdani's clients. So she actually brings a perspective, I think, to the table of the entire industry and what's happening across other asset allocators and with ESG more generally. Our third panelist is Kim Pexton from JBG Smith. Kim is the VP of sustainability at JBG Smith, which is really one of the leading companies in the industry around ESG implementation. They're an important partner to PGM Real Estate. That's why we brought them here today. But they obviously have their own portfolio of transactions that, you know, they've developed over many years. And I think Kim is a great person to talk about what ESG looks like at the level of the operator or the developer. So with those intros out of the way, I'm going to just jump right in and start asking questions. My first question, Christy, is for you. You know, I'd love it if you could just sort of set the stage for why PGM Real Estate, which has, you know, over $160 billion of AUM obviously has been very successful at raising capital and allocating capital over many years, felt like it was valuable to invest resources in an ESG strategy. And, you know, what did that look like? How did that process sort of take shape? How do you steer such a large ship into using ESG across a portfolio? And then to the extent you can talk to what the hopeful outcomes are for ESG, you know, long run, that would be great. And we'll kick it off there. Well, first, thank you for having me. It's a great panel and a really important topic. You didn't leave me off with a softball. That's a deep and meaningful question. So I will try to tackle it. I think when you talk about why invest ESG resources, I sort of go back a couple of decades to it used to be sustainability and there was a proven out ROI and that's really sort of how our industry started to gain a lot of traction. And I think, you know, as the space has expanded and as we've matured as owners and investors, we've started to realize that the value proposition of ESG is not strictly limited to sustainability components and that there are lots of ways to drive value in an asset. So I think, you know, sort of on the on the investment front, it's evolved truly from an investment perspective and seeing the value that a good ESG strategy can bring to a property and to a platform and into a fund. But I think it's really, you know, really important, especially after the past 24 months to also talk about, you know, the external courses that have also driven commitment to this because we want to do it. Yes, it's the right thing to do. Yes, we think it's a good thing to do from an investment perspective. But now there are your third party forces in the way of our own investors and and the ultimate capital sources that are driving this. There are evolving regulatory environments that are making it, you know, a legal obligation to do a report on some of these things. But I believe ultimately, you know, we look at ESG as a critical strategy because at the heart of it, we think assets that are more more durable socially more durable environmentally are going to create more durable assets financially through stronger risk adjusted cash flows. I think that's that's really the heart of the why it's we want to do it we see the investment proposition but now there's a whole, whole, whole other world telling us now that we have to do it. The how, like, how is rolling this out in an organization like you know, I wish I could just say hard, it's really hard and its scale brings with it tremendous challenge and tremendous benefit. And that's sort of the motivation that keeps us going because we know we have this massive platform that if you actually if you take us across that equity and you sort of tally up all of the bodies that we touch, it's over 3 million people. But scaling it means looking at a very large global organization and having to coach up and educate a bunch of experts in a field that they have not previously focused. That's not even the lightest part of that's that's very that's very difficult and then you get into regional challenges, you know, you don't collect data the same way in every global region. You know, you don't get billed for your utilities the same way never global region so we want to program that is consistent and record replicable we want to be able to dive into those insights and take from them to inform strategies. But there are just certain inherent challenges globally, when it comes to doing everything the same way so I think certainly that scale is a challenge but once you get it right, and we think we're getting it right. You know the scale to the upside is the impact now now scales with that. And then what are we hoping to get out of it. I think transparency and insight, you know transparency is something I think we all as a world want more stuff we sort of in this realm of investment space. But I think for us, it's really about pulling deep meaningful insights from our from our initiatives that will allow us to inform our strategies that will allow us to achieve our goals, you know both financially and the world. Great, thank you. Shuba, could you speak to the implementation of the of the measurement and management of ESG and sort of, I think for this audience in particular it would be helpful to talk about, you know, what do each of those three letters mean to a company like PGM real estate what are they trying to what are they trying to manage for. And, you know, what are the contributors that are the most significant to each of those pieces of the metric. Sure, and thank you so much for having me I am so excited to be on this panel, and Ruben I'm going to start with your second question first because I think that would set the stage for the first part of it. If we talk about ESG, which is environmental, social and governance. It is actually a lens through which we look at things so it can really mean different things for different people in different companies. I would say that for E we look at, we look at things which which would help with resource reduction such as we advocate for practices that would reduce as energy water waste, our consumption overall, and which would ultimately also help reduce carbon emissions. This would create direct business impact so he is definitely one of the biggest component, which has been there and I'll get into some of the key things which impacted after this. And as I'll say that in the past 10 years, he has been the key focus of the industry but now may also due to pandemic, it has shifted a little more towards the s. And so now for occupant health diversity, well being mental health, all of these have come to the forefront of it. So I'll say those are the key things which fall under s it's of course not limited to it. And especially because we have a big impact group over here this is such an important one for them. And then on the G side of things which is governance. It is really what sets the standard and tone of the conduct so it can really mean different things again so it can be due diligence really for our sake, it is more about due diligence risk assessment policies. Regulations is a big one. Now that there are so many of them coming up, basically ethics integrity transparency all of that fall under governance. So that is I would say the key major you know conceptually what what things are and then some of the key things which impact these I will say for environment things that you do at your asset level. Maybe if you're doing certifications you have audits. I would also put climate risk assessment and mitigation under environment. And so basically all your activities at asset level of course data collection and utility part is a huge, huge part of it. And then under social it can be various things again depending on the type of setup you have so for us it's mainly tenant engagements take a different various type of stakeholder engagement that we do we there are certain certifications which are more towards health. So I'll say they fall under social as well. And then for governance again we have several regulations and reporting that we need to do, especially with PGM being such a global globally scaled and with every country having its own set of regulations and regions specific things. There's a lot to make sure that we are looking at all the risks and mitigating it. So that's that's all of that I'll say falls under governance. And then going back to your first question, which is about how PGM approaches measurement and data I believe so data collection is of course as Chrissy was saying it is such a such a difficult part it's huge and so that is something which is really key to the success of the program, and it definitely cannot be done manually or through just spreadsheets. We use measurable as our partner data platform on that for that. On top of that we also have our in house tools that we put on to make our data quality to the level that we needed to be. Again data standardization and the challenges because of the global scale is adds to the lot of complexity over there. One of the things that I'll say that we make we do is to to help make sure that our data is at a certain level and we are reporting it to the best of our ability we do data assurance. And we verify it as well to make sure that there is trust built in the quality of data that we produce. And we also set long term targets and make sure that we are looking at our progress and have a loop so that we can make we can make our data assurance based on the strength and weakness that we find through that. That was a long way to answer but this was a loaded questions. It was great it was a big question it was probably a somewhat unfair question so thank you for even trying to answer it all in one go. But Chrissy I'll start with you and then she would love to hear your thoughts, you know, we. It's clear that we're most of the way through implementation or I don't know what you what percentage of the way you would say you are through where you want the implementation to be. But obviously a lot of the rollout has happened now and I'm wondering what, as you've been rolling out and implementing the strategy has been that biggest obstacle that you had to get past, you know, with either internally externally whatever the sort of biggest factor was that they had to push through. I will say I feel very lucky to work for an organization like P2M real estate because there wasn't, you know, there wasn't an internal hurdle to get over to say this was important. I think, I think there are still some firms where people are trying to prove this is important and still making the argument and I, I feel very lucky and fortunate to work for a firm that understands the importance of this so I don't think there were. There wasn't that convinced the firm hurdle, which, which makes it nice and that a lot of firms do have that so I think for us, it goes back to that scale question and it's easy to do one thing right once. It's very hard to do that same thing right consistently, you know, a couple thousand times, and I think the challenge that that we have is that people want mess people want change quickly. So looking with a large firm, even using the example of, you know, are reducing our emissions and reducing our consumption. This isn't one solution that we are scaling across 2000 properties this isn't making that number up but this is truly 2000 bespoke solutions. And before you can even get to the solution you have to dig in to a granular level at every one of those properties to understand what the problem is about property, one property may have a water issue, one might be utility and electricity issues so it's really you solve this problem and I think, you know, thankfully again the top down for us was an easier solve, but it's really execution, and it's not so much that it's a talent, it's just that it takes dedication, disciplines, discipline perseverance you just can't let your foot off the gas because we've got a big portfolio and it's, you can't cast a wide net you really have to focus on every individual asset. Yeah, you know I'll say just I'm relatively new to PGM but one of the things that has impressed me is that ESG isn't just your job or Shuba's job it's like a part of everybody's job and that seems like it wouldn't it just wouldn't work without that. There's no way it could work. I mean the it's it you need we need boots on the ground around the globe and it's also a philosophical commitment from everyone in the firm you know it's it's it's not just, you know, giving work to an analyst it's really understanding why we're doing what we're doing and making sure that we're communicating that message. You want to add something there. I think just to add to this point. It is so important for the ESG team to be like even having the ESG team is not enough until it is integrated into all aspects of the business. I think that is such an important part of it to be to work closely with different different businesses. So I'll say that is one thing that that that is very very important and I won't see it is a challenge. It is something that in fact I'll say that we have made tremendous progress on. I think Kristi covered it pretty well. I really don't have much to add over there. Well, I'll keep you on the hot seat though. So, as you're thinking about, you know what you've seen now within the implementation at PGM real estate, and what has sort of what you alluded to in terms of where the industry was the focus on E that has kind of dominated the last 10 years. But with more and more sort of operators and allocators kind of adding ESG guidance to their management strategies and figuring out how to get their hands around their portfolios from these perspectives. You know, what would you say just in the last two years has kind of been the trajectory and the sort of most important trends within the sector around ESG implementation. Um, so I'll start with the net zero and climate risks which have become really climate risk has come to the forefront and it is now an investment risk. It's not even looked at as a risk, which is different to that anymore. So I would say that is such a huge shift that has happened which has also helped move the needle on net zero and the progress that we are seeing on that front because just I think until last year or just end of 2020 a lot of companies were still thinking about that. Oh, should we do net zero should we come into it or not. And now that is not even a question. Now the question is how soon are you going to achieve it. So that has that has been such a huge shift in terms of the conversation around it and it has accelerated ESG and brought it to the front and center of everything. Um, the other shift that I see is on the regulatory front with so many regulations and of course with pigeon being global that impacts global firms are way more impacted by that because the regulations coming out of Europe for example. They not only impact Europe they also impact other countries which which which has been a shift and and we'll see more and more of them coming it is not. There is no stopping there. So, those are some of them and again I mentioned social before that has been another shift which which we are seeing coming. And so these are some of the ships that I would highlight. Great, thank you and now I want to bring Kim in on that point Kim at the level of your firm, you know, and you haven't been with JBG Smith forever so you've got actually some perspective from the broader industry as well but I would love to hear kind of how you know you've seen JBG kind of work through some of the things that she was talking about you know the sudden kind of seriousness about the climate risk and and change and also the kind of true integration of the S like trying to actually put some meaning around that and and whether those are trends that have affected the way that JBG Smith approaches ESG investing. Yeah, I would. Again, thanks for having me just really quickly for those of you who might not know who JBG Smith is we are an owner operator developer in the Washington DC metro area with a diverse portfolio of both office multi family and a little bit of retail kind of peppered in there. And to answer your your question, Ruben, you know, we, you know, seeing over the last, you know, 30 years just of my career being able to see how sustainability and ESG has evolved from really policy based you know it was a handful of years ago that folks have been talking about the fact that, you know, we're talking about ESG and sustainability, but we're not necessarily seeing globally reductions in carbon emissions. And well why is that, and really the primary reason for this is that the infancy of ESG was focused on policy. And so over the last handful of years, it's really been a major shift to results, and not just results, but and fast, like stack, when are we, when are we getting this time to shoot this point it's not even a question of net zero. It's, when are you, when are you going to get there when you're going to hit that target. And so when as JBG Smith as we're looking at some of these, you know, particular issues. We went ahead and and establish the commitment for carbon neutrality across our operating portfolio, and specifically for for the energy that is that is used to operate our buildings. That was if you can imagine a lot of various conversations over the course of about a year and a half to make that decision and just go ahead and do that. The reason that that ends up being so important to just at least make that step is because now our focus can shift 100% on net zero. And we've got that out of the way those conversations are done, our executive executive committees our investment committee has been fully debriefed on the various language, etc. And it really, it really smooths the path for the discussions that are going to continue to happen over the next year or so as we establish our roadmap for for net zero. And so I think that's I think that's a really, really important element. The other thing that we realized too is that, you know, we've seen in the last couple of years that the impacts of climate change and the impacts of social social justice are two things that are not being they're being felt together. They're not necessarily separate. And so those are things that we see being a driving force. We're very fortunate that in 2019, we had an addition of a vice president of diversity and inclusion in our organization that has really start to, you know, has built a great foundation of a more inclusive business with Smith at the corporate level. And it's, it's been awesome fuel for looking at sustainability in other business units. For example, our leasing team intentionally has has leased in the retail space to local businesses and We actually report those stats out annually and it's been it's just because of that recognition that from a social value perspective in the communities in which we serve where we're developing that development really has a major impact on the social engagement of people in neighborhoods, the community that's being created. And so creating a retail profile that looks more like the community that you're going into has been a very intentional thing from a from a social perspective as well. So those are just a few, a few highlights of the way that we're looking at that. That's great. And, and so building on that, you know, as you're starting to think about, you know, having made these commitments you've got sort of the organization aligned around them, you're implementing within the organization these commitments to social justice and diversity and inclusion. You know, how does that affect when you're out in the field trying to buy assets. How does that change the way that you might look at asset selection or how you might operate a particular asset. So it definitely, it definitely, you know, there's a lens, you know, that that is, is developed there. You know, we, Jamie Smith works to integrate ESG management across all of our business units. And as you're suggesting, Ruben, what this really means is that, you know, it's, it's not one blanket over each business unit. You're aligning the ESG related dimensions and metrics and KPIs with the KPIs of that particular business unit. So development, they're looking to, you know, develop high quality buildings that attract tenants or residents and come in on time under budget. So how from, from a sustainability perspective, do you integrate various objectives of reducing productive energy consumption by a certain percentage, etc. and so forth. So when we work with our investment teams, our due diligence list starts to incorporate within that process, looking at climate change and resiliency of a particular property and identifying are we going to be subject to having to harden in the future because of various climate change related elements. We look at the local law is to understand sort of that transitional risk as as the jurisdictions that we work in who have all set their own climate related goals. How do we partner with them. What is our place and actually helping them advance their own objectives, while also advancing our own and creating that that symbiotic relationship. So we take a hard look at building energy performance standards and energy benchmarking laws and things like that in that diligence stage. And the idea with with building, building an arsenal of all that information is that you're building a more robust profile of that particular asset. So just like you're, you've done for years in the diligence process and doing, you know, facility condition assessments, we blended energy audits and really create that robust picture so that we that we understand exactly what we what we need to do and develop as Christy has suggested a bespoke plan for the for that particular asset. So, so we know what we need to invest by way of of energy efficiency, etc. In that acquisition process. On the run side, our asset management teams across our office portfolio residential and retail, we work with those asset managers specifically on their budgeting and capital improvement and ROI project planning. We work with them to incorporate energy efficiency work that's designed to meet the specific performance targets that we have set to achieve by 2030, and also maintain a carbon neutral portfolio, but also looking at, you know, the future, future laws and other things that are that are coming that are coming down the pike on that. And it's and it's really, you know, and that's that's really how we, you know, we work to to capture and integrate and ensure that those elements are implemented. We have an accountability loop where we work with the teams to keep track of those energy efficiency projects and make sure that what was planned actually gets executed because it's no good to make plan and not actually, you know, kick some of those things down into, you know, future years like we've all experienced if something doesn't get done in a particular year. Great, and thank you for stepping us through that sort of, you know, acquire and run process and Christie I wanted to kind of jump to the other end of the cycle with you and think about exits and disposition. And, you know, is there something that we, you know, that you are now thinking about as an asset owner around ESG management that is important on the disposition side and who your buyers are going to be in a few years I'd love to hear kind of how that it plays out there. Absolutely. And I think you can just answer that question so eloquently and even just hearing how she was talking about it I think it underscores actually something like you said this is investment risk like if you think about the way. Kim just walked us through what you think about with ESG. It's the same way you want to write a market from a leasing perspective what's my pipeline you're talking about your retail synergies. I think it really just signed a bright light on, this is also good business. This is what will help you drive return be it's just, I start to talk about it's just a new bucket of risk that you have to consider, along with all of the other but you know buckets there in our DNA as real estate people to think about. And I think that speaks to your exit strategy. I mean if you're not running the property like that you've got nothing to sell an exit. And I think the market that we are in today is going to be dramatically is dramatically different than the market that we were in two years ago. And I think two years from now it's I don't see you to the we want it now stat, you know I think that intensity is going to continue in this space. And so I think if you are, if you are looking to deliver. Certainly into an institution likes it if you're a value play that's a bill to core your core investors are absolutely looking at these things. I think all institutional investors are looking at these things. And it's critical that you are able to deliver that that sort of, I think superior environmental profile to maximize value. And that said, it doesn't mean if a building doesn't have a positive environmental profile, you're not going to acquire it. I think that we also you're speaking to it is investment risk. Investment risk is actually what creates investment opportunity. And so I think it's really important that you know, you don't think of, you know, when we're selling a property or buying a property. You know, you don't want to eliminate the concept of buying a building with a poor ESP profile, because I think there's true value ran opportunity there but as a as an owner that's selling into a market. We would prefer not to leave that value on the table for someone else and deliver the property with the strong, you know, the strong profile to to maximize that exit but I think, I think that very quickly we're going to see all people who really care about this institutional and otherwise and otherwise and it also speaks to your what Kim and she would have been talking about as the regulatory environment shifts. There are going to be incentives that are carrots turning to sticks in terms of penalties. And so I think you really as a buyer, you know, whether or not you believe in ESP or not you're going to believe in the million dollar in your property that your property faces if you don't get your act together. And so I think that that evolving market will also accelerate and broaden I think the group of people that really need to focus on this from the business perspective. I think you'll certainly have for an extended period of time, small operators potentially flying under the radar and I think that's a solution we need to really start to figure out as a, as a world, you know, it's, it's, we're sitting here as large organizations with with all and if I need to spend a couple million dollars to upgrade a building I can do that. There are owners out there that don't have that ability and I think that's, that's a that's an issue that we're going to have to solve because I do think this is a space where we all win when we all win. And while obviously as PGM real estate we always want to outperform we also feel a responsibility to make sure you know everybody out there is contributing to these same goals. And that's like the perfect jumping off point for the next topic actually thank you. You know, I want to talk a little bit about the relationship between ESG and impact investing right with where impact investing, the way impact investors think of themselves as they start with a positive end goal or end state and they figure out how they're going to get into the investment strategy, roughly speaking, and, you know, your, your characterization of the ESG ethos and the, the, you know, dealing with it first as an perhaps an investment risk strategy, but then thinking about it really as a, as a market based strategy and what is the market that we're in and what what do we want all of the assets in the market to eventually look like and have those characteristics. Adopts a little bit of that impact investing framework, I think. And so I'm curious about, you know, how you think of those two things as related, you know, several years ago, PGM real estate entered, you know, into the impact investing space, you know, on its own launching a product. And I'm wondering how you see the nexus between those two pieces of the business. And I, you know, I think, if somebody might have said it earlier, I kind of view ESG as the lens through which we have to digest all investments where I look at impact as a very specific investment strategy. So it's one of our funds across the spectrum of products. I think they're closely related because you're looking to, you're, you're looking for similar outcomes and returns in both. So where I think that nexus is really in taking the best of both worlds and applying to them, you know, applying to each other as applicable. So if we're thinking about some of the services that we're implementing in our residential portfolio on the impact side, and we're seeing that drive, you know, retention, and we're seeing that drive community engagement and, and we're seeing that, you know, maybe help advance rental rates depending on the structure of the asset. So there's no reason why that approach or that strategy needs to be contained in the impact strategy. We can borrow from that and spread it and scale it across, you know, our whole, our whole monthly family, our whole monthly family portfolio. And the converse is if we're doing something that is particularly beneficial in your standard market rate, you know, commercial apartment buildings, you know, there's no reason why that has to stay limited there. We want to provide the same level of service across our platform. And we want to make sure almost to Kim's example of making sure we're delivering a retail property that is that speaks to its market. We want to make sure we're doing that with every property we deliver because that's ultimately what makes the property successful. So I think it's about taking the, you know, we're very fortunate to have a very large data set. And I think that they can both inform each other. And Kim, you know, thinking about how JBG Smith approaches this, I know that you all have direct initiatives that you're involved in an impact investing, you know, in your work. Do you kind of see that that same crossover that Chrissy was talking about where one idea from, you know, one side of the work can kind of inform the other one or where ESG can be a mechanism for scaling impact or vice versa. I'd love to hear how that's playing out with with the work that you've been doing. Yeah, it's definitely, you know, how we how we typically approach things, you know, we're big on pilots, right. We tend to highlight things for a few months, see how it goes do a little evaluation and then roll it out and scale it which it which is smart. You know, it's a it's a great prudent approach. So that works really well for us. And I think I think that is it's a scalable and very simple approach quite frankly and we've we've done various things from energy efficiency projects, you know, window film, you know, leasing agents do not are leasing team hates film on on office windows right and low and behold somehow we found out about a product that you roll on a window and it dries clear and it and it has the same properties from a, you know, from a thermal heat gain, you know, kind of perspective as regular film. Great, let's pilot it. All right, we're going to, you know, put it out there at scale so is it for me it's really fun to do those projects because it does take me and take me a little bit back to my background which was, you know, in in building construction for for a lot of years so and then you know from, you know, we do we do sort of a little bit of the same thing even on the social side. So our I had mentioned before our VP of diversity and inclusion, she is specifically working on sort of that that corporate human capital level, and really, you know, as I mentioned before creating that culture of inclusion but also there's training components what you know we've all gone through unconscious bias awareness training and various elements like that and those do you know spur ideas I mean ultimately that spurred the idea in our retail team to actually develop a more intentional vision of how they were going to look at leasing and bringing in more local and more, more minority businesses so that was that with that's a direct linkage between some things that you're doing in one space, just generating ideas across the various business units of how they can use that particular information in that experience, and relate it to what they're doing, you know, in their in their particular business unit. I wanted to talk a little bit, you know, specifically that would just what was going on with respect to affordable housing in the development space for us a lot of times affordability comes up in the entitlement process. So what that ends up looking like is some kind of a price big price break for, you know, a percentage of units within a multifamily building, and to me, and I'm sure other affordable housing professionals out there really don't necessarily view that, you know, as true affordability. I sort of recognize that and actually got engaged with the Washington housing conservative conservancy, and, and the Washington housing initiative, where we actually act as the impact pool manager. And part of that process as the impact pool manager is that we help identify potential acquisitions, we go through the same kinds of diligence processes that we go through for, you know, acquiring other assets that that are ultimately going to come into come into the And we, we developed various social dimensions and sustainability dimensions to review in that process that near some of what we're doing in the read space with with ESG and our larger portfolio. So again, you know, focusing on some of those things start to inspire various ideas and practices, and, and that has evolved to a space where we're, we're specifically identifying the amount of affordable housing and workforce housing that we've preserved in each acquisition. We're reporting out annually on those social dimensions, as well as the sustainability dimension so we're reporting on the carbon the energy, the energy use water waste, all of those dimensions for that pool of projects that have come out of that particular Washington housing conservancy effort. Oh, that's great and you know, as someone who has seen a lot of different impact investment strategies, particularly multi asset strategies come and go. One of the challenges for for those of us who are investing in them is oftentimes coaching the asset manager to provide that kind of reporting and being able to provide that cross portfolio look. Shuba, I'm just curious, you know, to me, like Christian camera obviously extremely adept and, you know, careful spokespeople for, you know, understanding these relationships and being really thoughtful about how, you know, this kind of work can influence the industry and where it's going. What do you think is this, you know, is this where all everyone in the industry is headed, you know, what would you say the mix is right now in terms of viewpoints around ESG and impact investing across, you know, other real estate platforms, the industry more generally. I would say in general, there is definitely a rise in interest on the impact side of things. And to me as a ESG I mean I can I can say from the consultant or like a person who is focused on the ESG aspects of things to me it is still pretty similar things that I would do if I had to approach that fund and you know help help them with their ESG features and Kim did a great job and touching on a lot of those things is that in the industry, even if that fund is an impact like or a non impact I would still work on making their energy water waste more efficient and which would of course help them reduce their cost and their bills and make it more affordable. And I know that these features are being implemented by a lot of ESG is getting implemented by a lot of funds in general, with like as on the social factor like I was saying before which is of course the bigger focus of an impact fund. That is not just limited to impact anymore like a lot of other funds are also making sure that they have a good focus on that. I would say that there is a lot of interest that is building around impact overall. But I also wanted to point out that I see that everyone pretty much wanting to do more than what they were doing on the social aspects, even if they're not just an impact fund in general, because everyone sees a lot of value in that. And in fact they have been research which has shown that a lot of like funds which which perform higher on the social side, compared to other metrics of ESG, they outperform some of the other funds. Well, so, well, they have been a lot of research on these aspects but they, I feel like this is a good one to look at because this is something where the trend is moving towards and a lot more people are adopting it. Great, thank you Shuba and I'm going to keep you on the hot seat and switch to some audience Q&A, because something you said prompted some discussion in the chat that I've had like half an eyeball on here, which is, you know, what are the tools that we're using to assess ESG metrics because I think you mentioned measurable, are there other kind of data services that we're making use of to for implementation? Yeah, there are many different services. So, measurable is just for us to have a data platform because we cannot do it manually on spreadsheets. But as I was saying that we also have our internal other tools which we use to keep to create our strategy to determine okay which what is that asset, which are the different assets that we want, like Christy was saying to have a game plan for an asset. We have internal tools that we have developed to come up with those and to have a game plan for an asset for multiple years. So, we use that and then we also have climate risk and resilience that we are looking into heavily and we have tools and vendors that we use separately like we look at 427 for example as one of our vendor to look at our various climate physical risks at asset and portfolio level both. So, we do use other vendors depending on what kind of data and metric are we looking into with these two as examples. I was just going to say if you don't mind I wanted to hop in because I certainly don't want to scare anyone in the audience away, you know, I would say that at the moment JVD Smith has a, has a, you know, a much smaller portfolio in the region, and quite frankly, a lot of what we do is still in spreadsheet so I would, I would say that, you know, there, there are, there are organizations and, you know, that you can look to for what indicators, you know, that you that you want to track and build metrics around and be afraid to start in spreadsheet because starting in spreadsheet is still a good way to go. Doing something. But I also think it's, you know, there is a ton of money flooding into the VC space around ESG. And so I think we're going to start to see more and more tools at more reasonable costs. And we're also seeing, you know, this is sort of the more mundane side of ESG, but even, you know, groups like Greg's come out with tools that are facilitating reporting as the regulatory environment gets more and more intense. So, you know, from my position, everything we want to accomplish in ESG, we're going to need to rely on technology and we're going to need to even rely on technologies that we don't have today to get us where we need to go. It's going to be a really critical part of the path. Great. The audience has also provided a thornier question and I'll put this out there as a toss up for anyone who wants to jump on it. You know, it must be or it probably is that there are trade offs at times between environmental and social issues or between wanting to push harder on one side versus another. So that's an example of that might be, you know, if you're going to make an investment in a building to make it more energy efficient, who's going to pay for that or their tenants that are going to pay for that, you know, long run versus short run. And, you know, are there examples you can think of in your work where you face that kind of tension, and how do you manage that, or how do you think about that, you know, as it as it comes up. So Kristy, if you want to go and I have a specific example to you, so go ahead. Sorry. Maybe I'll hit it quickly because I think that, you know, like, we've actually had sort of green leasing in place for a long time, which really dictates how you expense share at a property. So that's, that's again, we've sort of been talking about a lot of these concepts without having a name on them for quite a while. So, you know, if you're doing a retrofit in an office building or an industrial building, there's a mechanism in place where tenants and landlords share that cost to amortize it. It's not overly burdensome. So I think that there are structures in place through green leases that really facilitate that partnership. And I do think it needs to be a partnership. This only gets solved if we make it everyone's job. I think where it becomes maybe a little bit trickier is in the multi-family space where you don't have those same, you don't have those same agreements in place. The leases are very different. The utilities are individual. And so I think you do run into some, you run into a different boat of challenges there. But at the end of the day, I think I saw a part of the question pop in when it was there. You know, I think doing the right thing for the building environmentally is doing the right thing for your tenants. And again, we know through COVID and even as we look at climate change that underserved communities are hit disproportionately. So I believe there may be times when you are making decisions about expenditures. But I don't think that doing the right thing environmentally in your property or it is ever at a trade-off to your community that you house because it only benefits them. I think that doing the right thing by your community, I think only benefits the investment. So you're always making financial decisions in our roles. But ultimately, I don't, I think those two things actually go hand in hand. Sorry, at least I think it quick. That wasn't very quick. I was just going to share, you know, one example sort of trade-offs and, you know, just echoing what Christie said, you know, because, you know, social justice and climate justice are not necessarily separate. So really anything that you are doing on that environmental side is is a social benefit. It's reducing carbon emissions, which, you know, which impacts the air that we breathe and impacts the health of our communities. So that's so it is really, truly all interwoven. But, you know, we have been running into a challenge with respect to deploying more on-site solar and, you know, just from a penciling financially, you know, how can we deploy on-site solar when there are other related projects and ways that an asset manager can spend the dollars on a particular asset. And we've been very successful with LED lighting retrofits and variable frequency drive deployments and, you know, and things like that. But solar is is is a bit tough and it's even tougher, quite frankly, in the Northern Virginia market. So where we have landed because of that is we are focusing more heavily on our development pipeline and incorporating on-site solar into our new developments, which just so happens to be a little bit driven by the fact that our local jurisdictions are requiring solar on our buildings. So we're really kind of taking that opportunity, a challenge that we have on our existing footprint to try to see what we can do on the existing because somewhere in the future, as Christy mentioned, there are going to be possibilities and doors that are open in the future that we don't even or we can't even imagine yet. So at some point it'll be right to to to deploy, but it's the same thing with, you know, with other, you know, capital expenditure considerations. I think his example also signs a great light on the conversion of carrot to stick, you know, in terms of, you know, were we getting an incentive to do the solar? No. Okay. Now there's no incentive there. It's challenging financially. People may be split on doing it, but then code evolves and now you have to. So it's, you know, the way the markets are evolving to get us there. And I think that that's going to be now that level sets in that market. Christy, you're just like mastering these segues. I did totally uncoached. I mean, couldn't be because this is spontaneous Q&A, but the next question actually is pulling back to that macro sort of view and what are those pressures, those societal pressures or societal shifts that are really motivating the uptake and analysis of ESG, you know, the the questioner noted the, you know, sort of a generational shift among shareholders and in public companies and, and maybe people who are, you know, investing in other ways are have different demands than their parents did for their portfolio. And I'm wondering if any of you have thoughts on, you know, what are some of those other broader societal factors that are meaningful in kind of pushing us forward on this journey. I think we're definitely seeing a generational shift. It's very transparent when I say we don't necessarily see it in renter selection, which is interesting because we see it pronounced through upwards through our investors, we get that pressure from them we know the public company side you see sort of the outcry that results in action but when the rubber meets the road and people are walking into our leasing offices. I'm always pronouncing in the way people make their own personal decisions I mean I think economics, you often dictate and that's a very real thing if you've got X amount of dollars to spend on rent in a month. You have X amount of pool. But I think one thing I want to touch on that I think it's interesting and this is you're talking about societal pressure. I'm not a largely domestic crowd on this fall, but going back to the challenges of scale and the challenges of ESG and the S is different globally. And I think that's something that for a global advisor we also need to be very aware of that in certain parts of the world it may be healthy safe working conditions. In some parts of the world it is social housing in some parts of the world it's affordable housing, and then you can across the pond to the US and you know clearly with social unrest it's social justice and it's very high. So I think a big part of ESG when you think about it globally is also, you know, the S is really a little bit of all of that. But it's pronounced differently in different regions so we've got to be aware of all of those societal pressures to make sure that we're delivering on our investment proposition. Hey Merchuba unless you want to jump in on that I think I may note that we're coming up on time here. I think Kristi did a great job. Thank you. A plus answer. Alright. Well, I want to thank all three of you for a really terrific conversation. This has been, you know, super interesting for me, I've learned a lot and, you know, I think, given the liveliness of the questions from the audience I think, you know, the material was well received and gave everyone a really some really great food for thought. And just want to say I hope that we all get to see each other at Socap in person sometime, hopefully in 2022 so for friends and colleagues and so forth out there in the chat and in webinar world and with my own colleagues here in front of me I do hope that 2022 is able to bring us together in person to continue to talk about it and work on these issues. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.