New tenant benefit addresses critical need to help recovery of honeybee populations as part of ESRT’s continued sustainability efforts
Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT) announced today that it welcomed its newest, tiny tenants with honeybee hives installed at the Empire State Building, 1350 Broadway, 111 W. 33rd Street, and 501 Seventh Avenue. The hives will help restore the bee population to provide much-needed pollination to the surrounding areas and local, ethically sourced honey.
“ESRT continues to attract high quality tenants and investors with its commitment to sustainability initiatives that benefit the market flight to quality, and now even honeybees have joined the flight to quality to our portfolio!” said Anthony E. Malkin, ESRT’s chairman, president, and CEO. “These beehives engage tenants and employees around the important sustainability efforts in their offices and will produce honey sourced right from their workplace community.”
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Each hive contains up to 50,000 bees at the height of the six-month pollination season from April through September. Tenants can keep up with their building hive’s activity – updates, photos, and videos provided by the beekeeper – on their own dedicated building page of the Alvéole website.
“We are thrilled about the buzz that our bees will generate on the World’s Most Famous Building,” said Alex McLean, CEO and co-founder of Alvéole. “We work with a type of bee, the Italian honeybee, that is very docile, and provide a safe way to raise awareness of tenants to the importance of honeybees right here in New York City. We are grateful to ESRT, a leader in sustainability, whose buildings are now a platform to help honeybee populations recover from a record 45% loss in the past year.”
Honey produced from the hives is expected to be harvested in November, after which it will be given to tenants and guests at annual events held at each building. Tenants of each building will also have the opportunity to name the queen of their building’s hive for the chance to win a private honey tasting with the building’s beekeeper and the hive’s first produced jar of honey.
“Honeybees are vital parts of our economy and ecosystem and are in serious decline,” said Dana Robbins Schneider, senior vice president, director of energy, sustainability and ESG at ESRT. “The protection of these tiny pollinators is critical as 90% of plant species depend on pollinators. Honeybees contribute $15 billion to the U.S. economy each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This project furthers our mission to deliver superior service and benefits to tenants and the members of our communities and helps to connect our tenants with their office buildings and ecosystem.”
ESRT is a leader in sustainability, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and healthy buildings, and regularly pursues opportunities to improve the communities in which it operates. The company reached carbon neutrality for its 9.9 million square foot commercial portfolio in 2022 through a 43% operational emissions reduction portfolio-wide with 100 percent of remaining emissions offset by renewable energy credits that support – among other initiatives – the preservation of 9,000 acres of biodiverse forested land. In partnership with a more renewable grid, ESRT is on track to achieve its target of net zero emissions with an 80% reduction in operational emissions at the Empire State Building by 2030 and portfolio-wide by 2035.
More information about ESRT’s sustainability practices can be found online.
Source: Empire State Realty Trust