Sabra Health Care REIT continued to make progress meeting its e-initiative roadmap goals last year, the Irvine, CA-based real estate investment trust noted in its fourth annual sustainability report. The report for fiscal year 2023 was released Monday.

The company’s roadmap, launched in 2021, has six pillars: measure, identify, initiate, innovate, validate and replicate.

“At Sabra, we’re committed to true alignment between our business strategy and our sustainability initiatives. These efforts matter to our stakeholders not only because they are the right thing to do but also because they’re an important part of how we create long-term value,” Rick Matros, CEO, president and chair of the board, and Lynne Katzmann, PhD, the board’s corporate responsibility and governance committee chair, said in a press release issued Monday in conjunction with the sustainability report. Katzmann is founder and CEO of Bloomfield, NJ-based Juniper Communities.

A specific highlight of the year, according to the report, occurred at the Sabra-owned Gardens at Wakefield in Raleigh, NC, a Holiday by Atria independent living community that recently underwent an extensive HVAC and water heater upgrade project as part of a multimillion-dollar refresh.

“Sabra’s goal was to identify the most compatible solution benefiting residents and caregivers while increasing efficiency and reducing emissions,” the company said.

To meet that goal, the REIT replaced the existing gas water heaters in resident units with modern tankless systems and an HVAC inverter system. “The solution reduces the impact on the environment and promotes cost savings while delivering a more comfortable atmosphere for the senior community residents and their caregivers,” according to the report.

Overall, the REIT said, Sabra expanded utility data collection to 100% of its managed portfolio, including year-over-year impacts from its e-initiative and greenhouse gas emissions verification.

“In 2023, continuing into 2024, we took steps to expand our environmental data collection and management processes, including benchmarking tools such as EnergyStar Portfolio Manager and other third-party services that we believe will aid us in continuing to analyze and improve energy use,” the company said.

Sabra said it continues to make progress on energy efficiency initiatives across both its managed and triple net leased properties

“Programs such as Green Links are applying our e-initiative roadmap to benefit and support our NNN tenants, including, where appropriate, financing environmentally beneficial improvements after exchanging and assessing energy, water and other data,” according to the REIT.

The Green Links program, Sabra said, applies the REIT’s e-initiative roadmap by financing tenants’ environmentally beneficial improvements after exchanging and assessing energy, water and other data. Sabra established an initial $5 million Green Links Fund in September 2022 with the expectation that the initiatives would be “accretive to our tenants and consequently beneficial to us as we increasingly evaluate physical and transition-related climate risks and the resilience of our assets to such risks,” the company said previously.

Other highlights from 2023, according to the report:

  • The company embedded its e-initiative awareness and approach across all Sabra asset management team members and underscored portfolio energy efficiency and adaptive reuse initiatives.
  • The REIT assembled a team of internal and external resources to support health technology solutions to promote safer and healthier environments for workers and residents and improve outcomes and the resident/patient experience.
  • Sabra upheld its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, including providing a collaborative culture and workplace and competitive compensation and benefits.

“The success we’ve achieved is a testament to our team’s shared sense of purpose and the strong relationships we’ve cultivated with tenants, operators, stockholders, community and industry,” Matros and Katzmann said.

Read the full sustainability report here.