PNC Bank

Checking in at #8 on the CoStar Group’s list of the top ten green real estate stories of 2007 was the commitment that a number of banks demonstrated to sustainable building and operations during the course of last year. When we presented the list to you earlier this month, gbNYC noted the green efforts of a number of banks here in the New York City area, including JPMorganChase, PNC Bank, and Bank of America. Not to be outdone, HSBC Bank announced last week that its Headquarters Tower on the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City has earned the first LEED Gold rating in Latin America. The 400,000-square-foot, twenty-four-story project earned a 2007 National Interiors Award and top honors for Corporate Interior Design from the Mexican Interior Design Association. HSBC purchased the building back in 2002 after merging with a local Mexico City bank called Bital.

According to this week’s edition of Crain’s, Brooklyn-based moving company Movers Not Shakers recently received a trademark for the term “GothamBoxes.” The firm distributes these reusable plastic crates to clients rather than cardboard boxes, which it will drop off one week prior to a client’s move and then pick up again one week afterwards. Dubbed GothamBoxes, the crates are designed to hold the equivalent of one hundred cardboard boxes. Movers Not Shakers is committed to sustainability; the firm donates $200 each month to the Prospect Park Alliance in order to help offset its carbon footprint and converted its fleet of moving trucks to biodiesel over the summer.

“Green Branch” is now a registered trademark of PNC Bank. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") recently granted the mark to PNC, which is actively participating in USGBC’s LEED Portfolio Pilot Program. PNC currently manages forty LEED-certified branch banks in six states, with more on the way. Fifteen of these branches have been certified under the Portfolio Program. We've written previously here at gbNYC about both the Portfolio Program and PNC's green efforts, which also include plans to seek LEED ratings for Three PNC Plaza, a mixed-use building in Pittsburgh that should open in 2009, and a new regional headquarters in downtown D.C. scheduled for 2010. According to PNC, the USPTO approved its application for the “Green Branch” trademark in part because the financial services industry is not generally associated with sustainable or energy-efficiency characteristics. PNC opened its first LEED-certified branch back in 2002, and Gary Saulson, director of corporate real estate at the bank, noted that the mark is "affirmation of PNC's leadership in green business practices during the past decade."