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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews Robert Politzer, Founder and CEO of Green Street Global. They discuss the company’s mission of profitable decarbonization in commercial real estate, innovative cost-saving technologies, and the exciting potential of algae biofarms as a sustainable energy solution. Robert shares insights on their unique business model, target markets, and the future of renewable energy investments.
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Robert A Politzer (00:00)
So 100 % of the costs of the upgrades were financed. So there was no out of pocket cost to the client. And the savings were over a million dollars. So when you put in $0 upfront, any dollar that you earn is basically an infinite return on investment.Michelle Kesil (01:50)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Robert Politzer who is the founder and CEO of Green Street Global, creating green energy buildings and currently also working on algae biofarms. So excited to dive in with you today, Robert.Robert A Politzer (02:18)
Michelle, thanks for having me.Michelle Kesil (02:21)
Of course. So yeah, let’s dive in. For those who are not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is?Robert A Politzer (02:30)
Yes, ⁓ so our fundamental mission is profitable decarbonization. ⁓ I happen to be somebody who believes that the thousands of climate scientists around the world know what they’re talking about and that we really do have a massive issue with our climate crisis and with excess carbon emissions. And one of the largest source of carbon emissions is commercial real estate.So I’ve been involved with commercial real estate in New York City for about 27 years now. And I’ve developed a program to turn building emission liabilities into opportunities. So in New York City, there’s a law that requires all buildings above 25,000 square feet to lower their carbon emissions by up to 80 % or to face significant fines. It’s called Local Law 97. So our program was designed initially to
help building owners in and around New York City, of which there are over 50,000 buildings that have to comply, to comply with this program in a way that actually, again, turns liability into an opportunity and makes this into a profitable venture on their part. And this, program now is nationwide and we’ve gotten a large and growing number of amazing partners who we work with.
We are basically doing what we’ve been doing for 27 years. We’re doing construction project management with a focus on green buildings. We’ve added, though, for this turnkey program, we’ve added a cost saving solutions ⁓ program of which we have over 60 different cost centers that we can audit with our partners for no upfront cost. And when we find savings, we share in the savings with the client over a period of time, after which time all the savings goes to the
So it’s a shared savings model, no upfront cost to get started. It’s really packed with value. Then the next phase of our program is to actually work on the building. We’ve got a number of really amazing technologies, proprietary technologies to install to improve performance. One of which is a real simple, it’s a water savings technology. It’s a meter. It’s a valve. I’m sorry, that is a building-wide valve gets installed in a matter of about 30 minutes.
And it basically squeezes out the air bubbles that are in the water when it comes into a building. And in that way, we’re going to be lowering the volume that’s going over the meter. So that device will save between 15 to 20 % on water bills. Once it’s installed,
it’s for as long as the technology is installed for, so substantial savings. Then we have a window membrane technology, simple installation installed on the interior of the building. It will lower heating and cooling costs by up to
40%. So if we just begin with our cost savings audit and cost savings solutions and then we do the installation of the water meter and the window membrane, which applies to really every building, just those three steps are substantial savings, substantial improvements in energy and water performance and savings for the client, increase in net income and increase in valuation.
Michelle Kesil (06:37)
Amazing. And so these types of projects, do you have maybe some examples you want to share of buildings where you have already implemented this?Robert A Politzer (06:48)
Sure, we’ve got we work with one multifamily portfolio owner in New York City and we identified over $300,000 of savings opportunities through an array of there was a cost segregation tax deduction opportunity. was an EP, excuse me, 179 D tax deduction opportunity. We have the get the water savings. We did we did an audit.on their electricity bills. found pretty substantial savings there. So over $300,000 of savings we identified with no upfront costs with that client. And another project that, you know, with a partner of ours is a large hotel in Pennsylvania where all the costs of the technologies that were installed, an array of energy efficiency technologies were paid for through a
an off balance sheet on bill financing program with an energy supplier.
So 100 % of the costs of the upgrades were financed. So there was no out of pocket cost to the client. And the savings were over a million dollars. So when you put in $0 upfront, any dollar that you earn is basically an infinite return on
not only does I’ve
program begin with cost saving solutions conducted on a shared savings model. when we start working on the building to upgrade the building, of course, it costs money to upgrade the building. But we can finance those costs 100%. And when there’s even reasonable amounts of savings through the upgrade of the building, the finance costs will be less than the savings that the upgrade provides. So it’s a zero net cost building upgrade along with our shared savings, no upfront cost.
cost saving solution. you know, we’re also developers. We’ve got, we understand the mindset. We try to make this frankly, just to be an absolute no brainer for our commercial clients and make it very easy to get started. And then every step of the way we’re adding value to their project and to their business.
Michelle Kesil (09:04)
Yeah, that’s amazing. So who are kind of like your primary ideal customers?Robert A Politzer (09:12)
So any client, any commercial client, ideally that owns a portfolio of buildings where they are responsible for all of the utility and operating costs, all the utility costs of the building that they should own ideally, and then all of the operating costs for the business that they operate within their building. So one owner owns the building and the operating business responsibility for all the bills withwith substantial bills that they have to pay. So the best verticals tend to be hotels, nursing homes, assisted living, senior living, industrial. It can be private schools. Those all meet that basic criteria in hospitals and ⁓ medical centers as well.
Michelle Kesil (10:39)
Amazing, so sounds like some larger institutions, correct?Robert A Politzer (10:43)
Yeah, we just submitted a proposal to ⁓ the University of Michigan. I can’t say which department, but a very large department. They’ve got a huge number of ⁓ properties. We’ve also submitted this to SUNY, ⁓ State University of New York. And so ideally, we’d be working with those ⁓ larger clients that have a portfolio of buildings and high ⁓ utility and operating expense.Michelle Kesil (11:17)
Amazing. And so what are you most focusing on solving or scaling to next?Robert A Politzer (11:25)
Well, so the next big update for us is going to be to build out our proprietary AI-powered platform to simplify, streamline, and automate every step of our program. Right now, we’re acting as ⁓ consultants, basically. A lot of what we do is semi-automated, semi-manual. We want to be ⁓ optimizing and automating every step of this program. So.We have a group ⁓ ready to get started with us to start building on our platform. That’s a big, big, big step forward for us. And then the next step forward to us that we’ve already began the process of is to be starting to acquire our own buildings. We do have a hotel in Manhattan that we’ve have a whole team. We are working to secure our equity financing on that project. ⁓ This simple model.
of acquiring hotels and other similar verticals that have ⁓ that are somewhat outmoded need to be upgraded. that acquisition and then the application of our asset max program is a very, powerful business model. So we’re our plan is to start with hotels. We’re like I said, we’re getting close to our first acquisition.
And after working on hotels, we’re going to be able to expand this model to other similar verticals. Like I said, nursing homes, assisted living, senior living. It’ll work really well for those as well.
Michelle Kesil (13:06)
Yeah, amazing, that’s incredible. And do you find that there’s not many people creating these types of solutions? Is this more of like a unique vertical, you would say?Robert A Politzer (13:23)
Well, there are plenty of companies doing some elements of our program. What’s unique about our program is the turnkey holistic ⁓ breadth and width of what we provide. But within that, there are unique components. So our asset max audit is a unique audit. ⁓ Nobody that I’ve seen will.will provide an audit in-house, no upfront cost, with professional auditors doing the work over 60 different cost centers. Every main cost center in the building, so they’re utility related, and in every major cost center in the operating business as well. ⁓ That’s really somewhat unique. And then we also include an energy assessment with a group of a team of ours, one of our partners, ⁓ that will identify the
the basic performance of the building and then upgrade opportunities. They, course, as a next step can, you know, can work on installing some of their proprietary technology. But then we also, also unique to our program, we have a window membrane, a proprietary window memory technology that’s from a Montreal company.
It’s the best in its class. It’s better than the 3M product, better than every one of these window films out there. ⁓ So that’s a unique proposition we bring is that window membrane. And then
the water valve is not necessarily unique, but a lot of people don’t know about it. So our model of starting with our asset max audit, identifying all of the cost saving solutions, implementing those cost saving solutions, and then as a next simple step, installing either the water
valve and or the window membrane that could be paid for with the savings we’ve provided for in the audit and in the cost savings. That’s really a that collectively that’s a unique model. Nobody that I know of has that overall value proposition that we have to bring.
Michelle Kesil (16:20)
Yeah, definitely sounds like an amazing opportunity for people. So when we were chatting before you were sharing about the algae bio farms. Can you expand on what that is?Robert A Politzer (16:37)
Sure, so this is a proprietary technology. ⁓ We’re working with the patent holder out of South Korea. The founder worked for 12 years, invested over $10 million, and then built a large-scale industrial prototype biofarm in Malaysia, where they got extensive third-party validation, testing done. They had a number of international oil companies that came and toured.the biofarm and three of them were very impressed and they signed 16, collectively they signed 16 billion dollars of offtake agreements, which is pretty extraordinary. And these biofarms are just truly remarkable. First of all, the profitability is extraordinary. The crude algae oil that they produce at scale can be used to power generators.
to produce clean, renewable, actually carbon negative power. So this is huge for ⁓ power generation in the United States and around the world where there’s becoming a growing huge deficit of power, mostly because of the ⁓ data centers that are being built in this country and around the world. And so the algae biofarm is tremendous for that, but it goes way beyond that because the crude algae oil can also be used as
Shipping fuels, it can replace the shipping bunker fuels that are used without swapping out the motor of the shipping, that can all stay in place. So providing renewable shipping fuels along with ⁓ renewable power, but then also the crude algae oil can be refined into sustainable aviation fuels. So the demand for renewable low carbon power, low carbon renewable.
Shipping fuels and aviation fuels is enormous and growing. So, ⁓ you know, that’s one component of this, of these biofarms. The other component is the solid byproduct. It’s known as algae cake. So you get the crude algae oil and the algae cake. From the algae cake, ⁓ animal feed, fish feed, cosmetics, fertilizer can all be produced as well. So we have a proposal into with our partners in Brazil to be bringing
this holistic program to the nation of Brazil. And Brazil, along with having extensive ⁓ energy and electricity needs, has a huge cattle growing operation. So that’s of a lot of interest to people we’re talking to. they’ve got a lot of, ⁓ there’s extensive.
fishing operations in and around Brazil. So all these components together make for a really amazing, extraordinary, unique value proposition, especially for companies like countries, I’m sorry, like Brazil. We’re also pitching this. We’ve got a partner we’re working out with in India, another in Australia. So this is truly a scalable global venture with just tremendous, tremendous opportunities. And for investors,
the investment opportunity is absolutely extraordinary. In year one, it’s a $5.5 million investment. After year one, after the BioFarm is ⁓ producing, ⁓ the very conservative projections are $200 million of annual net revenues. ⁓ Of that, the investor gets 10%, so it would be about a minimum, we could say, projected
$20 million a year in returns for the investor starting in year two that will repeat every year thereafter so long as the biofarm is in operation, which we estimate will typically be between 20 to 30 years. So this is an extraordinary investment opportunity.
Michelle Kesil (20:47)
Wow, yeah, that sounds very unique and incredible. amazing what you are creating. Sure.Robert A Politzer (20:55)
So, and one more thing I’ll say to this, one of the many reasonsI’m so excited about this crude algae oil is because, you know, there is a vast petroleum oil infrastructure around the world, right? Vast, all over the world. The beauty of this crude algae oil is that it can be fed into that entire infrastructure in place of the petroleum oil. And then that entire infrastructure can be utilized moving forward. It won’t need to be replaced.
with this crude algae oil. So that’s a tremendous, tremendous opportunity for ⁓ algae to become the substitute for petroleum oil.
Michelle Kesil (21:38)
Wow, are there any like big obstacles for that to happen?Robert A Politzer (21:44)
Yeah, we’re just, it’s just where we’re at. ⁓ There are six bio farms that are in the early stage of development in Albania. We’re waiting for the developer to close on their green bond financing. That’s how we finance these projects through green bonds issued in Europe. And ⁓ so ⁓ that project is moving along. We just don’t have a lot of ⁓ fully commercialized bio farms in operation yet.It’s just where we’re at, it’s come a long, long way. And it’s in the process of happening. It’s just there’s a lot of money sitting on the sidelines waiting for a little bit more traction.
Michelle Kesil (22:25)
Yeah, absolutely, and that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing all of that.So before we begin to wrap up here, if somebody wants to reach out, connect or learn more about what you’re up to, where can people find you and connect with you?
Robert A Politzer (22:42)
They can find me on LinkedIn. Just look up my name, Robert Politzer. It’s like Politzer with an O, P-O-L-I-T-Z-E-R. They can email me, [email protected], G-R-E-E-N-S-T-R-E-E-T-G-L-O-B-A-L, [email protected]. They can find me on Facebook as well. They can friend me on Facebook.Those are the major ways, LinkedIn, Facebook, and then email.
Michelle Kesil (23:16)
Perfect. Well, I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. Thank you for being here.Robert A Politzer (23:22)
Sure, it’s been a pleasure, Michelle. Thank you so much.Michelle Kesil (23:25)
You’re welcome. And for those listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure you have subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Robert who are building real businesses and we will see you all on our next episode.
