Sustainability issues have dominated the news coming out of ProLogis to an unusual degree in the past few weeks, and thats saying something for one of the commercial real estate industrys greenest companies. The worlds largest owner and developer of distribution facilities said Wednesday it was ranked as the top REIT reporting this year to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a nonprofit that publishes an annual index measuring corporate greenhouse gas emissions. The week before, it announced that it joined two Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and committed to participate in the governments Zero-Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative.

ProLogis received a CDP score of 97 out of 100 this year, one of the highest scores among U.S. companies. The index ranks Global 500 and S&P 500 companies based on voluntary surveys sent to those firms. BASF, Bayer, Nissan Motor, Barclays and Merrill Lynch were other top-ranking U.S. companies. "It is important for us to communicate consistently and accurately to all of our external stakeholders, and our place on the index this year is testament to our progress in achieving that goal," said Robert Watson, the chief sustainability officer for ProLogis. The score reflects the lengths that ProLogis has gone to in promoting sustainability both within the organization and to clients. It set ambitious goals in 2006 to reduce construction waste and water and electricity consumption at its facilities, and committed this year to develop all its new warehouses in the United States and United Kingdom to LEED or BREEAM standards. In March, it partnered with the Southern California Edison to lease more than 600,000 square feet of rooftop space to the electric utility for the largest photovoltaic panel installation in the world.

Late last month it announced its participation in the U.S.Department of Energys Zero-Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative, where it will partner with national labs to implement new energy efficiency technologies in new and existing facilities. According to Jack Rizzo, ProLogis managing director of global construction: "We believe this project will give not only the DOE insight as to where building technology is heading, but also will provide ProLogis with a better understanding of the impacts of these changes and an ability to be on the cutting-edge in terms of energy efficiency."