Matt Ellis, Measurabl Founder & CEO: “Capturing ESG data creates value across your organization – from company operations to financing activities”

Measurabl is the world’s most widely adopted ESG (environmental, social, governance) data management solution for commercial real estate. Customers use Measurabl to measure, manage, and report ESG data on more than 12 billion square feet of commercial real estate across 90 countries. Measurabl helps the industry’s most innovative companies optimize their ESG performance, assess exposure to physical climate risk, and act on decarbonization and sustainable finance opportunities.

VMware powers the world’s complex digital infrastructure with cloud networking and security, digital workspace offerings and an extensive ecosystem of partners. They are committed to being a force for good, from breakthrough innovations to their global impact. Sustainability Manager, Natasha Tuck, had a background in real estate so she knew the ins and outs of green buildings, but she needed better data. She needed the site managers — the people most familiar with the data of their office — to have a consistent way of tracking their resources and projects. Tuck came to the Measurabl platform after realizing that VMware’s current sustainability software was too complex for the day to day operations necessary to achieve consistent, optimal data quality. Measurabl’s simple interface helped VMware collect data and visualizes progress, while also providing granular insight into the performance of each of their sites. Because their sites must contend with different municipal laws, and landlords with different ESG agendas, centralizing all their locations to Measurabl meant that each could contribute to VMware’s sustainability objectives in a way most useful for them. Furthermore, armed with a single source of ESG truth, the sustainability team at VMware can now identify gaps and anomalies in data coverage to focus in on areas of improvement.

Measurabl is just part of VMware’s aggressive sustainability goals. Yet the platform plays a role in helping the company report its many successes. One such success was VMware’s qualification for the CDP A-list in 2017, an achievement that only 2% of companies that report to CDP can claim. In 2018, they became Certified Carbon Neutral two years ahead of schedule – which they attribute to a wide range of renewable energy projects and investments in sustainable developments, many of which they track on Measurabl. This was followed by the company reaching their 100% renewable energy goal. With their own buildings on track, VMware is now focused on net positive projects, which offset more resources than they use.

Measurabl in action

Boston Properties (BXP) is a publicly-traded real estate investment trust with approximately 50 million square feet of property in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and DC. BXP uses Measurabl to help their entire team — from boiler room to boardroom — stay agile to get quick wins in sustainability practices. As one of the largest owners of Class A office properties in the United States, Boston Properties is always seeking new ideas that give them the competitive edge. “I want to be open to new ideas and technologies,” states Ben Myers, Director of Sustainability. “That’s my number one challenge.” So when Myers attended a sustainability peer group for Nareit (National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts) and first heard about Measurabl, he took notice. Measurabl presented an opportunity for BXP to dig deep into their ESG data completeness in much the same way they look at their financial data. Here was software that could collect and quantify sustainability efforts and turn it into a reporting tool that communicated asset performance to stakeholders. Myers was in. Onboarding for Boston Properties was simple — they were already accumulating their utility data. It was just a matter of importing it into the Measurabl platform. From there, the sustainability team hit the ground running. The Measurabl interface was so simple that the staff felt comfortable updating their data, and a few proactively created their own dashboards to analyze their regional performance.

As a result, whenever Myers went into his dashboard to view portfolio performance, he knew he was working with a complete and current data set. If he saw gaps or anomalies, it was due to a building performance issue he could investigate. Through Measurabl, he could easily engage with teams to figure out the root of the issue.  In the first year BXP used Measurabl, Myers refined key performance indicators a month ahead of schedule.

Award-Winning Ambitions

With Measurabl, not only is Boston Properties’s sustainability reporting the best it’s ever been, their ESG data is also investment-grade. They have a verified and audited set of sustainability performance indicators to withstand a similar scrutiny to which their financial information is subject. With confidence in their data quality, their ambitions are only escalating. “We are in, perhaps, the most exciting time for any sustainability real estate practitioner to be in the industry,” says Myers. “There’s so much opportunity everywhere you look, everything we touch, there’s the ability to improve upon what we’ve been doing.” In the last five years, BXP has invested $25 million in energy conservation, generating a 24% rate of return for their stakeholders. And in 2019, Myers received Nareit’s Leader in the Light Leadership Personified Award. Inspired by what others in the industry are doing, Myers hopes to synthesize ideas from the ESG community to accomplish long-term ambitions for Boston Properties.

Meet the leader behind the success of Measurabl

Matt Ellis is the Founder & CEO of Measurabl. Matt is responsible for overall company operations, product vision and investor relations. Before founding Measurabl Matt spent five years with CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services company, where he began his career as a real estate broker and went on to lead CBRE’s Sustainability Practice Group in the Western US, implement CBRE’s industry-first global carbon neutrality program, and serve as Director of Sustainability Solutions. He was also a member of CBRE’s global sustainability steering committee.

“Leverage accurate, asset-level ESG data so you can implement physical climate risk strategies, improves operational efficiencies, and gain better access to capital.”