Green REIT's

Is there such a thing as an ethical REIT? The Christian Science Monitor interviews a pioneer of this concept. As a REIT investor, it's something I need to start paying attention to:

What makes a building 'green'?
What makes a building green is a variety of factors: using a site that had been used once before versus going out and ripping up farmland, being next to mass transit ... using recycled materials in terms of the carpets or tiles, [and] whatever you do on the site - recycling it. The runoff from the rain - you would capture that water, often called gray water, and recirculate it to irrigate the landscaping.

How can an investor tell when a building is really green?
Anybody could say: "I want to be green." There's a US Green Building Council, which is a nonprofit organization, which has put out LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards. You apply to them, and they will certify that your building is green. You must independently hire someone to audit that you did this [or that].... We have 14 buildings that have either been certified or are in the process. And we have about seven more that are about ready to get started. We think we've done more than anybody else, but it's a little hard to keep track.

That's 21 buildings out of a portfolio of how many?
About 735 buildings. So we have a long way to go to having a green portfolio. But in order to address that ... if space goes vacant and we have a new tenant come in and we have to put in new carpet and new tile, we use the same standard as we would use if we're trying to make the building green. We're trying to use recycled materials, use monitors for the lighting to minimize energy consumption. And we're not doing that to get it certified, but just because it will lower the operating costs. So we're slowly converting over the portfolio.

Are you alone in offering green buildings?
No, there are other companies doing it. Some are private developers, so unfortunately the investor we're talking about couldn't access them. [For example,] the Hines organization, which is a very well-respected developer, is doing a building in Manhattan that way. Some other REITs have done some. But I think I could say without blushing that we're doing more of it than anybody else in the publicly traded world.