American Campus Communities publishes 2023 Impact Report

Jason Wills on ACC's decades of ESG leadership and future plans

We released American Campus Communities' 2023 Impact Report: Live Responsibly, which details the ways we create healthy, sustainable environments with a sense of community and connection by giving back, investing in our team members and driving long-term value for all stakeholders.

Some of the highlights include reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 10% since 2022, being named to Newsweek's list of Most Trustworthy Companies in America for the second year in a row and increasing the diversity of our leadership. Although our report covers our work over the last year, our achievements are enabled by the strong foundation of ESG strategies and practices we've put into place over the last two decades.

Jason Wills, ACC's senior vice president of corporate responsibility and development, has been with our company since 1997. He was instrumental in developing the sustainability strategy that has made us a leader in the student housing industry. Here's Jason, in his own words, reflecting on ACC's past, present and future work to lead with integrity and make a positive environmental and social impact.

What does "Live Responsibly" mean to ACC?

The majority of learning takes place outside of the classroom in living communities like those we foster. "Live Responsibility" is a call to action for our team members and our residents to be mindful of the impact our actions have on our communities, our environments and our future. We have opportunities to make a positive difference through our work and our everyday living.

Why is it important to ACC to report on its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) impact annually?

One of our ESG goals is to maintain annual reporting. Reporting transparently is key to developing awareness about what we are doing well and what we need to improve. It's hard to ignore trends and opportunities for improvement when you are reporting consistently. This commitment builds trust with our stakeholders and it promotes accountability.

What accomplishments are you most proud of for 2023?

We have many metrics moving in the right direction, but I'm especially proud of the infrastructure we're laying for the future and how we're integrating ESG into our operations. We continued expanding our mental health support programs and partnership with Hi, How Are You Project throughout the student housing industry as one of the founders of the College Student Mental Wellness Advocacy Coalition. I'm also proud of the framework we built this year for tracking diverse suppliers-we work with more than 10,000 businesses, most of them small and local. We also have adopted a new green certification policy to reflect our expanded approach to sustainability and wellness.

In your letter in the report, you note that ACC cared about ESG before it was an acronym. How did we get our start?

From day one, we've always been dedicated to doing the right thing-to leading with integrity, having a positive culture where people can grow their careers and giving back to the community. We created our sustainability strategy in 2005 when developing Frear Hall at The University of Hawaii at Manoa. The university system and the entire state have a strong focus on minimizing environmental impact, so my fellow ESG task force member Gina Cowart and I, along with many ACC stakeholders, worked with our team to create the sustainable building framework we still use today. Our team invested a significant amount of time making sure that our sustainability approach was customized to the student housing business, and not compromising the residential environment or communities in any way.

Frear Hall was our first LEED-certified community, and at the same time we were building a relationship with the University of California, Irvine, that was very focused on incorporating sustainability into our communities. I am grateful that our university partners have challenged us to incorporate sustainable thinking into our planning process. Today we lead the student housing industry with 40 LEED-certified projects, and most importantly, our student communities are healthy, efficient and resilient.

What did you learn about green building from those initial projects?

At the time, there was a perception that sustainability didn't have a payoff. The first thing that we did is address that, and said we believe sustainable communities are comfortable, marketable and better for residents. We went all in, took a holistic systems approach where we look for every opportunity to tailor communities to the local environment and use resources efficiently. In hindsight, I think it made us better developers at customizing our communities.

In the beginning, there was very little appreciation for sustainable features in a community. However, today the benefits of green building are well recognized: Many of our university partners now have ambitious emissions reductions goals and look to our experience to help achieve them. And sustainability is now an established marketable feature - 71% of our residents say it is "very important" or "important" for their student housing community to have environmentally sustainable features.

What are some of the other impact milestones you're proud of?

I'm proud that we've stayed the course. We've maintained our sustainability standards and impact initiatives throughout our company's growth and changes, as well as larger economic downturns and upswings.

I think our mental health initiative for residents and team members is our impact story of the decade. Moving away from home and navigating college life is a big transition, and it's so important to support students along the way. By partnering with the Hi, How Are You Project to develop peer-to-peer support education, we've reduced the stigma around talking about mental health and paved the way for groundbreaking research and industry collaboration.

I'm really proud of our team's work to create a utility expense management platform, which analyzes more than 20,000 utility bills every month from our communities, and their work to use this data to develop resource conservation initiatives-from plumbing retrofits to installing smart thermostats and building automation systems.

While our workforce has long reflected the diversity of the universities we serve, over the past few years we've put structure around diversity, equity and inclusion. We've scaled what we're doing well and made improvements, all while maintaining an open dialogue with our team members.

We've talked about where ACC has been. What excites you about ACC's future impact?

What I'm most excited about is seeing this generation not only embrace sustainable living, but also recognize the benefits of working with a company that prioritizes responsible development and operations. It's very satisfying to see the change taking place.

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