ESG Overview

Plymouth has been a responsible corporate citizen since our founding, but starting last year we are embarking on a more rigorous ESG journey. We have begun and will continue to strengthen and expand a range of ESG initiatives and to report more extensively about our progress. Although these more formalized ESG efforts are just getting underway, we have already made important progress in a few key areas, and we share that throughout this ESG section of our website. We issued our first full ESG Report last year, and our second annual ESG Report this year. Both reports are available here on our website.


2023 ESG Highlights


Compared to 2022, we:


  • Reduced electricity consumption 9.8%

  • Reduced natural gas use 21.5%

  • Decreased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 11.2%

  • Offset 60% of our GHG emissions, on the path to our goal of Net-Zero carbon emissions by 2025

  • Reduced water consumption 22.4%

 

  • Made progress in Plymouth’s Climate Change Policy & Strategy, committing to Net Zero emissions from our own operations by 2025 and from our entire portfolio by 2040


  • Converted 14.9 million square feet – 43.6% of our portfolio – to LED lighting – reducing total electricity consumption across our entire portfolio about 8%


  • Installed 17.7 million square feet of “cool roofs” – 51.8% of our total portfolio


  • Installed 2.2 million square feet of silicone roof renewals – 6.3% of our portfolio


  • Installed 1.6 megawatts of solar power – with contracts underway for an additional 6 megawatts of solar power

  • Improved our Green Lease Leaders Program recognition status from Silver for 2023 to Gold Status for 2024


  • Earned Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes certification for our two newest developments, bringing our total Green Globe certifications to six (and continuing to meet our goal of certifying every new development)


  • Continued our policy of granting meaningful numbers of shares of Plymouth stock to every employee


  • Once again achieved a perfect safety record in 2023, with ZERO lost-time incidents and ZERO total recordable incidents


  • Contributed significant financial support to local agencies in all 10 of our major markets to help them make progress in reducing homelessness

  • Continued the leadership from our three newest ESG governing bodies: Sustainability Committee of the Board of Directors, Management Committee for Environment and Sustainability, and Cybersecurity Committee of the Board of Directors


  • Re-affirmed with all employees through our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct our strong commitment to anti-corruption practices, diversity and inclusion, labor rights, and human rights


Message From Jeff Witherell, Chairman and CEO 


All of us at Plymouth are proud to share with you our second Environment – Social – Governance (ESG) report.  While we have historically pursued responsible ESG practices pragmatically and informally, for a full year now we have embarked on a more formal ESG journey. We are working to carefully understand the expectations of our key stakeholders, conduct benchmarking, and build solid, programmatic ESG initiatives. We have made significant progress during this first year, which we are sharing in this report, and we are excited about advancing even further in the years ahead.


Our most material challenge and number one commitment on the environmental side is to reduce our energy consumption and decrease our use of non-renewable energy, and thereby reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.  This year, we made important progress:  we reduced electricity consumption in our four dedicated Plymouth offices by nearly 10%, natural gas consumption by more than 20%, and GHG emissions by 11%.  We also made significant strides toward becoming carbon neutral, offsetting more than 50% of the carbon emissions from our offices this year, keeping us on track to meet our goal of achieving Net-Zero carbon emissions by 2025.


An even larger goal is to be fully carbon neutral across our entire portfolio by 2040.  During 2023, we continued converting our older traditional lighting systems to highly efficient LED lighting; with now more than 43% of our entire portfolio converted, this effort has reduced our tenants’ total energy consumption (Scope 3 GHG emissions for us) by an estimated 8%.  We have installed more “cool roofs” and silicone roof renewals throughout our portfolio, creating significant reductions in energy consumption. More than 50% of our properties now have these roofing innovations installed.  We are also bringing more rooftop solar arrays online, adding new sources of renewable energy for the communities in which we operate.  And we continue to achieve our green building goal of having 100% of our new developments since 2022 be Green Globe certified.

“This year, we reduced electricity consumption in our Plymouth offices by 10%, natural gas use by more than 20%, and GHG emissions by 11%.”


As important as reducing our environmental impact is to us, our ESG efforts also include significant social initiatives. We start with fundamental commitments to our people. We have always maintained that real estate is about people – and therefore to be outstanding in operationally intensive real estate we need to find and retain outstanding people. So we work very hard to do that. We begin with our duty to adhere to labor rights laws, support excellent health and safety, and be an equal opportunity employer with respect for diversity; but for us we go far beyond that. We provide highly competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package, including a company-paid retirement savings plan that ranks among the top 10% of all U.S. companies. Going even further, all our employees are shareholders, not just stakeholders. We grant restricted stock units to every employee, supporting our efforts to align everyone’s interests to create consistent wins for them, for Plymouth, and for our investors. This culture of shared commitment is a key part of how we think about the “social” dimension of ESG.

“Every single one of our employees is granted stock – reflecting our long-standing commitment to employees as fundamental partners in our shared success. ” 


Beyond our own people, as part of our work on the social dimension of ESG, we are also committed to the communities in which we operate. Specifically, we recognize that homelessness is an increasing problem — a crisis — throughout the US. It is a terrible burden for homeless people themselves, of course, and it also has challenging radiating effects for local businesses and for the vibrancy of our cities. Therefore, this year, as we have for the past four years, in all 10 cities where we have a significant presence, we provided significant financial assistance to organizations that shelter people experiencing homelessness and aid them in transitioning to permanent housing. Our support is helping to build a strong web of social effectiveness that makes life richer for all of us. 


Finally, we continue to improve our governance practices and processes. Our most significant governance commitment is to operate with the highest levels of ethics and integrity. We take seriously and truly live by our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct and are deeply committed to transparency and responsiveness to our shareholders. 


Structurally, beyond these ethical commitments, we have also put in place a strong range of good governance practices, which we detail later in this report. Specifically for our ESG governance, our two ESG committees – at the Board and Management levels – have provided the oversight and the operational planning and execution for the ESG strategies that have enabled us to make progress. 


We are committed to this ESG journey for the long haul. We believe ESG issues represent both significant risks and real opportunities for us and we intend to help lead the real estate industry in meeting those challenges. We are happy to share with you in this report our efforts this past year and look forward to hearing your feedback as we work hard to travel this path quickly and well.

Message From Caitlin Murphy, Chair of the Board Sustainability  Committee


As an independent director and Chair of the Sustainability Committee of the Board, I am committed to Plymouth continuing our pursuit of a disciplined, effective ESG initiative. We recognize that greenhouse gas emissions are a vital concern for everyone, and we are gratified to see the 11% reduction in GHG emissions we achieved this year.  Our Board Sustainability Committee is active in leading the effort to increase the pace and scope of that work even further.  


Our ESG work remains a true partnership between our people and our Board.  The Board is convinced that strong board leadership, hand-in-hand with our operational leaders, will allow Plymouth to make significant progress in ESG – and that elevating our ESG performance will not only reduce our impact on the environment and increase the social benefits we generate, but also lead to improvement in Plymouth’s overall financial performance as well.
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