JLL Sponsors New Carbon Disclosure Project

CHICAGO-Jones Lang LaSalle has signed on with the Carbon Disclosure Project to promote and assist a new program to gather data from cities about greenhouse gas emissions and other sustainability-related information. The CDP originally was created for organizations and companies to measure and disclose this data, and now the movement is expanding to get the public sector involved.

More than 3,000 companies in 60 countries disclose environmental data, such as greenhouse gas emissions, water use and climate change strategies, through the CDP. Now, the organization has launched CDP Cities, which asks city governments to publicly disclose this data, provide an analysis of climate change risks and opportunities and adaptation plans.

In October 2010, the CDP sent a 16-page environmental questionnaire to 59 of the largest cities in the world. Other cities were encouraged to take part. The organization hopes to release findings from this data collection this year.

Dan Probst, chairman of energy and sustainability services at JLL, tells GlobeSt.com that his firm has signed on with the group to assist in the data collection and parsing, while also looking to provide sustainable practice services to cities. Basically, he says JLL can help with this CDP movement, while also finding new public clients. “We have developed a world-class platform for large-scale measurement and reporting of carbon emissions, and are in the vanguard of companies able to help cities mitigate risk and seize opportunities in the new global green economy,” he says.

Probst says not only is important for a company to want to operate in a sustainable matter, a community must have that mentality as well. “We’ve been looking at how to do this data collection and improvements on an individual building basis, as buildings are the biggest part of emissions. This program can gather information collectively, and provide ideas on how to look across a whole group of buildings or a downtown and how to mitigate emissions, such as encouraging infill development or joint power management. This is smart-city type thinking,” he says.

He says JLL has a track record of environmental sustainable practices. The firm claims it saved companies about $128 million in energy costs and reduced greenhouse gases by 563,000 tons in 2010.