Carol Samaan, vice president, corporate counsel and ESG, at Healthpeak Properties, Inc. (NYSE: PEAK), participated in a video interview in conjunction with Nareit’s REITworks: 2022 Conference held on Sept. 12-13 in La Quinta, California.
Samaan noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate rule will require REITs to employ cross-functional initiative.
“You’re going to see REITs having to do some heavy lifting around getting teams to speak to each other…all the different teams that report on financial and ESG reporting, and really understand what the other does. I think REITs do need to start speaking about that. There are a lot of unknowns around this rule if it is finalized. It’s broad, it’s very prescriptive, yet there’s a lot of gray area in terms of how we will report it,” Samaan said.
Samaan went on to say, “it’s going to be a paradigm shift in terms of the way we are all thinking about ESG. How are we disclosing our strategy, how are we measuring and enumerating it, putting the results out. I think it’s really going to signal a shift.”
Elsewhere, Samaan discussed what REITs should keep in mind in terms of SEC views on liability and materiality. She also commented on state and local level climate rules that are in play.
A lot of states are waiting to see what happens with the SEC rules, Samaan said, but “I imagine there’s going to be a little bit of a trickledown effect” with states leveraging off the federal rules and maybe adding in something of their own.