Director of Sustainability

Company Description

Since opening our first self-storage facility in 1972, Public Storage has grown to become the largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities in the world. With thousands of locations across the U.S. and Europe, and more than 170 million net rentable square feet of real estate, we're also one of the largest landlords.

We've been recognized as A Great Place to Work by the Great Place to Work Institute. And, our employees have also voted us as having Best Career Growth, ranked us in the Top 5% for Work Culture, and in the Top 10% for Diversity and Inclusion.

We're a member of the S&P 500 and FT Global 500. Our common and preferred stocks trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Job Description

Public Storage is searching for an experienced Director, Sustainability. We are focused on resilience, growth, and value creation as we continue to solidify our position as a global leader in sustainable self-storage operations. Over the past 5 years, we have improved our sustainability posture with investments in emissions reducing projects across our portfolio, and we are now the nations’ leading self-storage owner of green-certified facilities. We currently have over 350 operating solar projects with an additional 650+ in development, and continue to work on additional initiatives to continue our carbon reduction journey. We participate annually in the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), where we recently obtained an ‘A’ rating. This complements our ‘Low Risk’ Sustainalytics profile, our ‘BBB’ MSCI rating and our achievement as the highest U.S. REIT score on the Carbon Disclosure Project. 

The Director, Sustainability will work closely with Company leadership to further advance and embed sustainability into Public Storage’s culture, investment platform, and operations with primary responsibility for the management of our Sustainability programs and their related reporting and communication. 

The right candidate will have a desire to build upon Public Storage’s existing sustainability processes, as well as the leadership presence to interact at the highest levels of the organization. This key leadership role requires an individual with deep expertise in sustainability practices, environmental stewardship, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable development initiatives. They will work well in a team-driven environment, be highly motivated, possess sound judgment, have demonstrated excellence in prior endeavors, and have a true passion for the task at hand. 

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: 

• Developing and executing a comprehensive, risk-based sustainability strategy aligned with the Company’s mission and goals. 

• Establishing and overseeing effective sustainability reporting processes, including producing the annual Sustainability Report and submitting responses to GRESB, MSCI, and other third-party rating companies. Working with stakeholders across the Company to ensure the underlying data for all reporting are monitored, collected, accurate and reconciled to the source data. 

• Working with Investor Services and the Public Storage Executive Leadership Team to respond to investor queries related to sustainability matters. 

• Creating and maintaining dashboards to track progress on the Company’s activities related to the overall sustainability strategy and its underlying annual goals. 

• Preparing and presenting presentations and reports to communicate status and progress of sustainability initiatives to internal and external stakeholders. 

• Working with other Company functions, including Legal and Financial Reporting, to comply with federal and state climate disclosure requirements. 

• Working with other Company functions, including Operations, Real Estate Development, and Asset Management, to establish and deliver on greenhouse gas emissions reduction and other sustainability goals. 

• Work closely with the VP, Enterprise Risk to monitor sustainability and climate risk in the portfolio and identify opportunities to address these risks. 

• Staying current with, and assessing the implications of, emerging sustainability trends, benchmarks, and regulations. 

Qualifications

• At least 8-10 years of experience in corporate environment, with 5+ years leading intra-organizational sustainability programs in companies of similar size and complexity to Public Storage. 

• Bachelors degree in Engineering, Environmental Science, Business, or related field. MBA or other advanced graduate degree strongly preferre