TIAA-CREF Improves Energy Intensity 3.6 Percent in Real Estate Portfolio

EPA Names TIAA-CREF an Energy Star® Partner for the Second Consecutive Year

New York, March 12, 2009

TIAA-CREF, one of America’s largest institutional real estate investors, announced today that it has lowered the energy intensity of its real estate portfolio by 3.6 percent since the organization announced its goal to improve the energy efficiency of its real estate portfolio in 2008.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named TIAA-CREF a 2009 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for outstanding energy management and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, citing the company’s progress in improving energy efficiency. This marks the second consecutive year that TIAA-CREF has been honored with this distinction.

"TIAA-CREF remains committed to reducing our environmental footprint while continuing to create value for our clients," said Tom Garbutt, Managing Director and Head of TIAA-CREF Global Real Estate. "We believe that we can have a significant impact toward achieving that objective through prudent property management, which includes energy efficiency."

TIAA-CREF’s Global Real Estate embarked on an energy benchmarking initiative in 2007 across the 43 million square feet of office buildings and other properties within the company’s real estate portfolio, with the goal of identifying opportunities to reduce energy consumption by 10 percent by 2010. Since that time, the energy saved is equivalent to about 32 million kilowatt hours (kWh) and 22,520 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions prevented.

In addition, TIAA-CREF has completed the benchmarking of its 12,000-unit multifamily portfolio, including collecting information on energy and water consumption, trash production and other areas for potential improvement. TIAA-CREF also participated in the EPA’s "Change a Light, Change the World" campaign, replacing light bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in the office and multi-family portfolios and distributing more than 255,000 CFLs and educational materials to TIAA-CREF’s tenants around the U.S. This initiative can help prevent up to 93,500 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy efficiency improvements were achieved through TIAA-CREF’s work with over 25 third-party property management companies charged with the day-to-day operations of its real estate assets to identify portfolio-wide and property-specific opportunities for improvement. Some examples of portfolio-wide strategies for improving energy performance that are being implemented include operating buildings on Saturdays only at the tenant’s request and verifying that lights are turned off when the offices are unoccupied.

In addition, specific properties are realizing savings by implementing energy management action plans. TIAA-CREF’s headquarters at 730 Third Avenue in New York has replaced its cooling system with new, environmentally friendly ice thermal storage chillers. The energy savings from this project include the removal of approximately 6,000,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, equivalent to removing roughly 600 cars from the road and planting 800 acres of trees.

"Creating value for our tenants and clients and reducing our impact on the environment are closely tied together, as implementing no- and low-cost and accretive capital improvements to improve energy efficiency also improves the economics of our real estate investment portfolio," added Nicholas Stolatis, Director, Strategic Initiatives, TIAA-CREF Global Real Estate. "We are proud to be recognized by the EPA for our continued efforts, and expect that the results of our ongoing efforts will have even greater impact as efficiency gains take effect over time."

TIAA-CREF has been an ENERGY STAR partner since 2002 and will be honored by the EPA at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 2009. Over the past six years, 66 of the nearly 200 office buildings in TIAA-CREF’s real estate portfolio have earned an ENERGY STAR label one or more times, 35 of which did so in 2008.

"For the second straight year, TIAA-CREF has earned EPA’s admirable ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award," said Alyssa Quarforth, U.S. EPA, ENERGY STAR Program Manager for Commercial Properties. "TIAA-CREF continues to be a leader among financial services organizations in their dedication to strategic energy management and reducing their environmental impact. In the battle against global warming, TIAA-CREF is preventing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year."

The ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Award recognizes efforts to increase energy efficiency in property operations and to integrate superior energy management into an overall organizational strategy. The 2009 award winners were selected from more than 9,000 organizations participating in the ENERGY STAR program.

In addition, TIAA-CREF’s One Boston Place, the first building to receive the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold designation for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance has also been named the Building Owners and Managers Association International’s (BOMA) Mid Atlantic Building of the Year in the Earth Award category. This award recognizes buildings’ indoor and outdoor environmental impacts.

About TIAA-CREF Global Real Estate
TIAA-CREF is one of the largest institutional real estate investors in the United States, with an approximately $63 billion global portfolio of direct and indirect investments (12/31/08). TIAA-CREF originated its first commercial mortgage in 1934 and began direct investment in commercial real estate in 1947. Today, on behalf of individuals, public and private institutions in the U.S. and abroad, TIAA-CREF Global Real Estate directly owns over $19 billion (12/31/08) of primarily high-quality properties in the office, retail, industrial and multifamily sectors across the U.S., Canada and Western Europe.

About TIAA-CREF
TIAA-CREF (www.tiaa-cref.org) is a national financial services organization and the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields with $363 billion in combined assets under management (12/31/08).

About ENERGY STAR
ENERGY STAR was introduced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 as a voluntary market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy efficiency. Today, ENERGY STAR offers businesses and consumers energy efficient solutions to save energy, money and help protect the environment for future generations. More than 9,000 organizations are ENERGY STAR partners committed to improving the energy efficiency of products, homes, buildings and businesses. For more information about ENERGY STAR, visit www.energystar.gov or call toll-free 888 STAR-YES (888 782-7937).

Media Contact:

Abby Aylman Cohen, Manager, Corporate Media Relations
aacohen@tiaa-cref.org, 212 916-4381 Cell: 917 596-4758