Sector: Commercial Real Estate
We can fund diverse Commercial Real Estate (CRE) assets, from master-planned communities, new urban cities (such as walkable communities, mixed-use, affordable/green housing), resorts, hotels, and more, but we give preference to their more sustainable and innovative “climate smart” designs, such as
- Regenerative hospitality — such as restoring coastal habitat both for traditional CRE as hotels and condominiums but with the value-added benefit of eco-tourism.
- Green buildings using sustainable alternatives to wood, such as timber bamboo (preserving wood for its nature-based carbon storage), or other carbon-capture and sequestering materials
- Sustainable communities & smart cities — whatever manages to leave open space, access to nature, or for rainy areas that have overdrawn their aquifers, less pavement and better designs for watch catchment, handling of wastes, minimizing commute distances, access to transportation, etc.
- Affordable and resource efficient housing — worker housing, student housing, social housing.
See CRE Case Studies & Testimonials
Solving the Housing Crisis 
Housing is not a privilege, for those who happen to belong to the right class, club or community, but it is arguably closer to a human right. The United Nations describes this as only they could: “Under international law, to be adequately housed means having secure tenure — not having to worry about being evicted or having your home or lands taken away. It means living somewhere that is in keeping with your culture, and having access to appropriate services, schools, and employment.”
Certainly, earning a living in the developed world must give rise to a “livable” wage, and this plays out differently depending on location, but new urban communities have been springing up that are built around affordability, independent living, and sometimes even organic farming, a design intention that keep growing in popularity.
Going well beyond conventional urban gardens, local food is the new green, with developers taking pains to build for the segment of the population committed to responsible, healthy living. But solving the problem of housing security is separable from food, energy and water security (reaching new heights as water table levels reach new lows), mostly because climate change and unsustainable agriculture practices are resulting in increased pumping of groundwater to counter rainfall shortages.
This is solvable. Although water, food and energy are an inseparable nexus, each interconnected facet essential to sustainable and authentic living, the bigger picture can include access to the UN’s “appropriate services, schools, and employment” in new communities, a challenge in many areas, but a worthwhile consideration for developers and their architectural designs globally.
Urbanization and Housing for the Masses
But as masses of humanity join the modern economy, seeking work in ever-increasing densely populated areas, cities and towns in less developed areas will feel the brunt of this pressure to urbanize. The population living in these urban areas is expected to gain 3.1 billion people (swelling to nearly 7 billion) by 2050 (ref), with the food/water/energy nexus at the center of the challenge.
Increasingly scarce water resources and low-carbon development goals put this at the top of the international community’s agenda, as captured in some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially 3, 6, 7, 8, and Goal 11 as aligned with In3’s investment strategy.
Something has to give. Being “less bad” is not the same as being good. Fortunately, past and future In3 success stories like NextGenUrban™ (nextgenurban.com) are ahead of the game.
More on this nexus at Water-Energy-Food.org presently doing good work in W. Africa.
Testimonial: NextGenUrban’s projects deliver self-contained neighborhoods that take care of all the essentials for a healthy, zero-waste, carbon neutral, “turnkey sustainable lifestyle, relying on locally-available renewable resources.
“A new era of healthy living and food production is upon us,” claims Allan Savory, long-time proponent of holistic resource management and ecological agriculture[4]. Now we can go the distance and provide living spaces for enjoying nature and healthy, organic living, proving that “the right thing” is entirely a matter of choice.
The Great Migration Becomes Sustainable
Already more than half the world’s population now lives in an urban environment. A fast-growing, increasingly prosperous and rapidly urbanizing global population will demand more food, energy and water resources to meet its needs. As we become wealthier we get thirstier (use more water), tend to eat more meat, waste more, and use more energy. From 1890-2000 the world’s population grew four-fold, but freshwater withdrawals grew by a factor of nine[5]. The aquifers are being overdrawn in unsustainable patterns globally to keep up with outmoded food, commercial and residential demands. Where regional economies are growing fastest, freshwater demand for energy and industrial use is projected to rise sharply – a whopping 56% in Latin America in just 30 years (2000-2030). The majority of rapid urban growth is occurring in the undeveloped world where population growth is typically higher, and usually more rural, which then creates a huge pool of people migrating to cities. Many countries are already extracting groundwater faster than it can be replenished. If this trend continues, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in areas of high water stress in just 10-15 years from now[6]. The effects of climate change impose additional pressures on water demand due to reduced agricultural yields, on rivers, wetlands, estuaries … affecting all waterways, including the ocean.
How do we square these seemingly impossible circles? Because these issues are interlinked they must be addressed in tandem. The NextGenUrban model, already proven in several markets, continues to gain acceptance worldwide. The approach requires acceleration to turn the tide quickly enough to become the “new normal.”
This leadership team has shown that it is not only possible but also quite profitable to do so. A strong, prosperous private-sector enterprise, with the necessary capital resources, delivers ever-increasing scale, creates jobs, and rapidly flourishing, long-term sustainable solutions with the potential to disrupt the old patterns and outdated “status quo” practices.
Some of the more popular approaches to this problem, so-called “agrihoods,” such as the Cannery in Davis, California, validate the market demand and imperative to think differently about urban development. These and countless other new neighborhoods help lower resistance to this investment opportunity because it feels too new to some, or as too fringe or even utopian; but in business as in nature, success speaks for itself.
The project in Davis claims it is California’s first example of a “farm-to-table” new home community, with 547 homes built around the 7.4 acre farm (more at livecannerydavis.com). There are many other similar example, with at least a dozen similar ones across the US, including in Georgia (Agritopia: Farm-to-Table Living Takes Root), says the New York Times[7].
Both NextGenUrban and these projects have similar goals, each adding value through a strong agricultural/farming component, with similar aspirations to help residents approach their sustainability goals, at least in terms of food, water and energy. But just as location remains key in real estate, so too is location key to planning future land use and enabling built, mixed-use environments, including entire neighborhoods, as truly sustainable from the start. There is no practical way to achieve zero waste, zero carbon and net positive water use when relying on entrenched “dirty” infrastructure.
That would be like lighting the inside of a coal mine with solar power! It works, and is better than not doing it, but is simply not sufficient. In time, the coal has to go. Thankfully it is leaving at an accelerated pace, but is it fast enough?
The NextGenUrban solution bundles together a complete package of sustainable and clean technology infrastructure services, without depending on unreliable municipal infrastructure, turning constraints into advantages. NextGenUrban’s projects are designed for the emerging mid-market of developing economies on some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, delivering comprehensive, turnkey “sustainable lifestyle communities” for residents, not just water/food/energy but also leap-frogging over the lack of effective waste management and other limitations to integrate locally-available renewable resources. Projects internally produce and deliver all required utilities and services. Nature-based recreation, adventure travel and tourism, water sports and organic foods round out the plan for healthy living.
Pent-up Demand in Emerging Markets
The developed world cannot avoid relying on entrenched, relatively dirty “old school” infrastructure (at least for now), with an unsustainable power grid, inherent water problems (California’s drought conditions will take years to mend), outdated waste management, and more. This, too, is changing. But unlike these developed economies, emerging markets often have extreme housing shortages that add to the challenges of building adequate new housing without perpetuating environmental problems of the past. Thanks to NextGenUrban’s forward-thinking management team, their partners are now addressing a 5 million unit shortage through projects that bundle sustainable infrastructure, turning constraints into advantages.
Food, sustainable lifestyles, and real estate are proving to be a marriage made in heaven and one of the more important trends to watch[8]. Sustainable land use planning and building with several generations in mind ensure that all stakeholders win and thrive for years to come.
For Further Information
Visit NextGenUrban.com | Contact Daniel Robin, Investor Relations
[1] news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140819-groundwater-california-drought-aquifers-hidden-crisis/
[2] un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/icpd-20.html
[3] water-energy-food.org/en/news/view__2482/a-world-of-extremes-new-thinking-needed-to-reconcile-food-water-choke-points.html
[4] October 2015 event in San Francisco: http://savory.global/artisans-of-the-grasslands
[5] World Environment Forum (WEF) 2011 whitepaper on water security
[6] Ibid, plus fact check (fixed a typo) via census data at census.gov/population/international/files/wp02/wp-02003.pdf, pg 3, and Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
[7] nytimes.com/2014/03/12/dining/farm-to-table-living-takes-root.html
[8] November 2015 forum in NYC on trends in “Food and Real Estate” at http://uli.org/forums-convenings-events/food-real-estate-trends-opportunities-forum-series convened by ULI’s “Building Healthy Places” initiative and Center for Sustainability.