Gary Pivo, Ph.D.

I am a professor of real estate, urban planning and natural resources at the University of Arizona. Since 2002, I’ve been studying how real estate professionals can, as Ben Franklin put it, “do well by doing good”. Some colleagues tell me I founded the field of “responsible property investing“, but I’d rather say I was just one of those all around the world working to bring sustainability and impact investing to real estate. To that end I’ve published research showing how we can measure sustainable and responsible property investing and how it can perform financially as well or better than conventional choices.

I’m pleased my research has had an impact. It’s been referenced in scientific papers and reports produced by the Federal Reserve Bank, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others. It’s even received the prestigious Legacy Award from the editors of the American Real Estate Society Journal of Real Estate Research.

To make sustainable and responsible real estate a more permanent option, I helped found the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative Property Working Group and the Urban Land Institute Responsible Property Investment Council. I also helped create basic data infrastructure for the field such as the Real Capital Analytics & Walk Score Commercial Property Price Indices, the National Council of Real Estate Fiduciaries Green/Sustainability Data Set, and the Global Reporting Initiative Construction & Real Estate Sector Supplement. Previously, I served as a university dean and department head and recently I became Co-Director of a new National Science Foundation Sustainability Research Network.

I first suggested creating a sustainable REIT fund in a 2005 speech to the international conference that wrote the Principles for Responsible Investing. The PRI has become the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment and I am thrilled to be helping Vert Asset Management become the world’s leading proponent of sustainable REIT investing.