Rick Avery, vice president for corporate sustainability at health care REIT Welltower (NYSE: HCN), joined REIT.com for a video interview at NAREIT’s 2017 Leader in the Light Working Forum at the Hilton Austin in Austin, Texas.
Welltower was a 2016 Leader in the Light award winner in the health care sector. Avery said the award reflected Welltower’s team approach toward making sustainability a priority and changing the company’s mindset to facilitate material change.
Avery stressed that sustainability has to be supportive of a company’s overall mission. “It can’t sit in a silo all by itself,” he said. He noted that Welltower is particularly focused on the transformation of health care infrastructure, “and sustainability plays a huge role in that.”
Meanwhile, Avery also commented on the current role of distributed energy grids and the changes they are likely to bring about.
“It’s one of these foundational elements of our energy infrastructure that over time will play a greater role in how we design buildings and how we run buildings,” he said.