The Meridian Group Procures RECs for Entire DC Portfolio
By Keith Loria June 21, 2022 5:07 pm
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The Meridian Group has purchased renewable energy certificates (RECs) for the bulk of its Washington, D.C., area portfolio.
The Bethesda, Md.-based firm signed a contract with Constellation, a Baltimore-based company which produces carbon-free energy, to purchase renewable energy certificates to match almost the entirety of its electricity use in 2022, which averages 114 million kilowatt hours per year.
Meridian has acquired RECs for all but two of its buildings, and, by 2024, intends to purchase RECs for the remaining two buildings, according to a statement.
RECs pay for renewable energy that flows into the electricity grid, even though it may not necessarily power Meridian’s buildings.
“By purchasing renewable energy credits, we are investing in renewable energy projects that are reducing greenhouse gas emissions as compared to traditional electric supply,” Stacy Lautar, senior vice president and director of property management for the Meridian Group, told Commercial Observer.
The Constellation-supplied RECs are Green-e Energy-certified and sourced from national wind or solar energy generators, per the statement. There is no monetary value to the RECs, though the company noted the expense is above the normal expense paid to the local utility provider.
With these efforts, the Meridian Group is slated to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 19,000 metric tons annually. That equates to the emissions from more than 4,100 passenger vehicles driven for one year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Our plan is to continue procuring renewable energy every year,” Lautar said. “It’s important to us to reduce our environmental footprint, and we want to continue to contribute to a sustainable future. We utilize multiple consultants and technological partners to identify opportunities to be more energy efficient, therefore reducing our carbon footprint.”
The company also is pushing to reduce its total electricity use across its portfolio over the next five years.
“Meridian constantly evaluates ways to conserve energy. We regularly perform energy audits to identify ways to minimize consumption and work with our tenants to ensure energy consumption is measured and reduced where possible,” Lautar said.
“We’re putting measures into place to monitor and control energy demand, make capital upgrades to more energy-efficient equipment, and educating our tenants on how they can help us drive energy consumption down,” she said.
Update: This story originally misattributed source material. This has been corrected. We apologize for the error.
Keith Loria can be reached at Kloria@commercialobserver.com.
