On Monday April 4, 2011 Wall Street meets GreenStreet: An Evening of Sustainable Discussion
In the photo from the left: Ran Kohn from Cleantech Corridor, Sarah Biser from McCarter & English, Sadie McKeown from CPC, BIn the photo from the left: Ran Kohn from Cleantech Corridor, Sarah Biser from McCarter & English, Sadie McKeown from CPC, Bomee Jung from Enterprise, SamMarks from DB, Jeff Perlman from Bright Power, Sean Patrick Neill from Cycle-7 and Bruce Schlein from Citi.
What has to happen to transform a static vertical city like New York into a greener and more energy efficient one? Retrofit and modernize the buildings, for one.
Yet that answer didn’t begin to plumb the depths on the vibrant discussion of expert panelists, sponsored by Cleantech Corridor on Monday night April 4.
Held at the law office of McCarter & English, LLP on Park Avenue, the five-member panel —divided equally down affordable housing, city policy, and financing lines—took the subject of funding the next phase in the green revolution to task. The challenges, they stated, are as immense as their passion and expertise are on the issues. Thus, through the gauze of the to-be-defined framework of funding those initiatives, a few common denominators emerged.
- Structured financing that can service the debt in retrofitting old buildings
- A new metrics to illuminate how to monetize green building upgrades
- Public money and policy to spur the momentum for economies of scale
- The need to drive innovation with private lending
The global consensus from the panelists was the need to gain traction by finding ways to aggregate funding over a disparate array of buildings, from commercial to residential and affordable housing. In the packed conference room with 130 industry professionals, however, only three raised their hands as private lenders. That small turnout didn’t detract, as much as it was a measure, a snapshot of where the industry is today. Much work on the structures of financing has to be done.
Sadie McKeown, Senior Vice President and Director of Lending at CPC Hudson Valley and Connecticut regions, and Bomee Jung, Manager of energy and environmental performance initiatives at Enterprise, led the way on discussions and the realities of affordable housing market, including identifying barriers of change all the way down to the building manager. They not only emphasized that savings in real costs had to exceed the standard 10% for those managers to consider retrofits for their buildings, but on the financing side the retrofits, but it had to “capture good cash flow,” as Ms. McKeown stated.
On the big bank financing of sustainable and renewable energy projects, Sam Marks, Vice President at Deutsche Bank’s Community Development Finance Group, and Bruce Schlein, Vice President of Corporate Sustainability at Citi bank, covered the business areas of lending on large scale green projects and how the banking industry will follow government and the smaller private lenders into the sector once the metrics are fleshed out and the green retrofits can be monetized successfully.
The good news, besides the healthy discussion by the four panelists, was the fifth one in Sean Patrick Neill, founder and principal of a consultancy Cycle7, who pointed out that he is working on developing the new metrics to fund sustainable projects in existing buildings. “The availability of the structure to lend, not financing itself,” he said, referring to what needs to be done next. Jeff Perlman President and Founder of Bright Power moderated the round table discussion with Sarah Biser partner at McCarter & English, LLP.
If the metrics are designed and they support an environment of growth opportunities, the money will follow and more cleaner, green and energy efficient buildings will become part of an old city remaking itself to ensure a sustainable future.
James O. Grundvig
