Environmental Stewardship

Minimizing Our Footprint

[EN26] ProLogis maintained its commitment to developing its facilities to the highest environmental standards, including the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program, BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) in the U.K and CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency) in Japan.

[EC2] As we reported last year, ProLogis announced two major initiatives in early 2008 to develop all of its new facilities in the U.S. and U.K. according to LEED and BREEAM standards. Since then, both LEED and BREEAM have increased in recognition and adoption by other nations across the globe, which is helping to set the bar for the real estate industry as a whole. We strive to build in accordance with the accepted green building rating system in all of our regions of operation. Where rating systems do not exist, we implement best practices learned from developing sustainable buildings across our global portfolio.

[EN26, PR1] At the end of the year, ProLogis had 46 buildings registered or certified worldwide, including:

We do not expect to increase the total number of buildings that achieve certification or registration during 2009 by a significant amount due to our company-wide decision to postpone development starts in response to the global financial crisis and our focus on preserving capital. However, we will meet these standards in buildings that were under construction prior to our decision and will continue to meet these standards in new buildings once we resume development.

[EN6] Buildings developed to these standards benefit from reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions. For example, ProLogis' LEED facilities are typically designed to achieve energy savings of 24.5% for new buildings, although our design has targeted up to 35% savings at some of our facilities. In terms of kilowatt hours, ProLogis' 2008 U.S. LEED starts are expected to save over 13.6M kWh per year during their operation. This is equal to: 9,767 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or the amount saved by eliminating 1,789 passenger cars, or planting 2,220 acres of pine forests.

In terms of formally tracking our results as they relate to our multi-year goals, ProLogis established a data collection system for the United States/Canada. We started eight buildings in this region during 2008, with more than half of them meeting the goals outlined above. We have not yet expanded the data tracking system to formally cover Europe, Japan or Mexico; however, we completed research on ways to incorporate LEED into our developments in Mexico so that we can achieve our goals in this and other developing markets when market conditions improve.

In addition, in September of 2008, ProLogis received ISO 14001 certification for all of its U.K. project management activities. ISO 14001 standards provide guidelines for environmental management systems (EMS), which serve as management tools for companies to identify and control the environmental impact of their activities, products or services; continually improve environmental performance; and implement a systematic approach to setting and achieving environmental objectives and targets. In October, ProLogis finalized a nine-step global implementation plan and timeline to extend this accreditation to encompass its project management activities across the rest of Europe. ProLogis is well underway with its objectives, and hopes to receive certification in Europe by the end of 2009, with North America, Japan and Korea targeted for year-end 2010.

[EN1] Some of the most common materials used in ProLogis’ distribution centers include concrete, structural steel, rebar, sprinkler pipe, roof deck, roof insulation, roofing and asphalt paving. In 2008, ProLogis used 3.2 million cubic yards of concrete; 163,000 tons of concrete, 91,000 tons of rebar; 8.2 million linear feet of pipe; 72.7 million square feet of roof material and 1.7 million tons of asphalt. We report this information to help demonstrate the environmental impact of our development activities.

©2009 ProLogis

The optimization of skylights and clearstory windows can generate savings of nearly 50 percent compared with artificial lighting, while energy efficient lighting systems minimize energy usage up to 40 percent less than a standard system. This results in savings on power consumption, carbon emissions and running and maintenance costs.
The laminated wood roof structure, which is renewable, was procured from well-managed and forest stewardship certified sources. It has lower embodied carbon compared to steel/concrete-made elements and has better fire resistance than steel.
The energy produced by the roof mounted solar panels flows directly into the utility grid. The total yearly output is about 120,000 kWh, which is equivalent to nearly 10 percent of the building’s energy needs, and represents savings of 52 tons on carbon emissions.