Welcome to Real Estate Bisnow New York’s first-ever Green Big Apple, a special issue on the second Monday each month that'll focus on green and sustainability trends impacting the metro area. Send your story ideas and feature suggestions to Amanda Marsh for next month’s issue. A big shoutout to Monday Properties’ Aaron Twersky for coming up with the fantabulous name!

“Green” has been hijacked as a marketing tool, and many of the features of green buildings have no impact on foreign energy dependence, consumption, pollution, or the tax, which energy costs really are to our economy, says Malkin Holdings’ president Anthony Malkin. And "green" isn't enough in a city where commercial buildings account for 75% of total carbon dioxide emissions.

Existing buildings should be focusing on incorporating energy efficiency whenever money is spent on retrofits, Anthony tells us. At the 80-year-old Empire State Building, Malkin Holdings supervised ownership in a well-known partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative, Jones Lang LaSalle, Johnson Controls, NYSERDA, and the Rocky Mountain Institute to reduce the building’s energy consumption. After an eight-month modeling and analysis, a project has been implemented that's guaranteed to reduce the building’s watt and BTU consumption by more than 38%, or $4.4M annually at April 2009 energy costs. The project refurbished on site the building’s 6,514 windows, installed reflective insulation behind the radiators, upgraded the chiller plant, upgraded the building energy management system, and installed submeters on each floor along with separate submeters for each new tenant space.

New full floor tenants now consume fewer than three watts of energy per SF, including air conditioning, half that of a comparable office tenant installation in a normal building, Anthony says. Even densely packed tenants, like the FDIC (which occupies more than 100k SF at the building) see this energy savings. The goal was to create a toolkit that other building owners can easily replicate—for free—to promote energy efficiency in their buildings, and a wealth of information can be found here. “High-quality tenants want to control consumption,” he says, and this not only reduces cost, but increases competitiveness for landlords. In addition to the other buildings in Malkin Holdings’ portfolio, 101 Collins in Melbourne, Australia, several other buildings in NYC, and a few corporate HQs have adopted the model, Anthony reports.

The Empire State Building was one of the three iconic towers to be named BOMA Middle Atlantic Conference regional winners of The Outstanding Building of the Year (TOBY) for '11-’12 last week in Philadelphia. ESB nabbed the historical award for being the No. 1 tourist destination and its sustainable renovations. 26 Federal Plaza took the GSA award, while Hearst Tower took the Corporate Building award. And BOMA/NY secretary Jim Kleeman of Related Management (left, with Brookfield Office Properties’ Edward Fallon, Cushman & Wakefield Louis Mantia, and Boston Properties’ Thomas Hill) won Member of the Year for his contributions to the industry. It was the largest showing of winners for NYC since '01-’02, and tied the Big Apple with perennial stronghold Boston. Congrats!

There’s a wind of change in the market encouraging owners and tenants to look at their energy usage. MCEnergy prez Meg Carey, who’s been working in the CRE energy arena for three decades, credits this to three trends: First, clients want to save. Even though energy prices have stabilized, there’s still chance for volatility, and the openness of the energy markets and possibility of carbon tax credits further incentivize companies. Second, NYC’s Greener, GreaterBuildings Plan is promoting submetering and benchmarking, since all buildings must have an Energy Star rating and carbon emission report by August 1. And lastly, there’s been a cultural change and shift in attitude for both public and private companies, who now want to focus on sustainability. (Thanks to Grand Central Terminal's Ahae exhibit for the perfect green backdrop).

Meg works with numerous Fortune 500 companies and NYC landlords—many times, across entire portfolios—to assist in energy procurement and budgeting. She brokered a deal between Malkin Holdings and Green Mountain Energy Co to purchase 100% wind power for the Empire State Building; the two-year contract will help the iconic tower avoid nearly 100M lbs of carbon dioxide emissions each year, equivalent to nearly every house in the state shutting its lights off for a week. SL Green, which owns buildings like the LEED-EB Silver certified 100 Park Avenue (above) is another. One of her earliest clients to embrace sustainable practices was the Philadelphia Eagles, which she says was one of the first to purchase a green energy contract.

Heller Industrial Parks (HIP) is not a company to waste an inch of space. With 16M SF of industrial properties across six states, particularly in New Jersey, there’s plenty of opportunity to put rooftops to good use and promote renewable energy. We spoke to VP and chief engineer John Porcek, who tells us the firm is well on its way to adding solar panels to 75% of its portfolio. This includes a $2.7M, 564 kW system at 16-20 Executive Ave in Edison, and a $23M, 4.5 MW system (one of the largest in NJ) being installed at 1 Industrial Rd in South Brunswick. The company began looking at solar power when the federal government gave a 30% rebate on installations (it's just like us with Groupon), which finally allowed it to make financial sense, he says. Over the next five years, it plans to install 35 MW worth of systems on 45 buildings.

This Google Maps satellite image shows the expanse of rooftops in NJ’s industrial market (HIP’s Edison property is in the center). After installing the solar panels, HIP is able to sell electricity at a discounted rate to its tenants, John says. This is especially desirable to tenants with high electrical needs, like food distributors that use lots of refrigeration. The ability to sell solar renewable energy certificates on the open market is also attractive. Much of this couldn’t have been done without the state’s support, John says—it’s a huge proponent of renewable energy, making solar installation more viable than in other states where HIP owns properties (Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, and Kentucky). “New Jersey’s on the forefront. Other states have tried, but haven’t come close.” Heller also recently retrofitted 4M SF of its buildings with more energy efficient T8 fluorescent lighting, with eventual plans to retrofit the entire portfolio.

It’s easy being green with Bisnow. Send your story ideas to amanda@bisnow.com