Areas of Expertise

Brenna Walraven is an internationally recognized leader in the commercial real estate industry and sustainability sphere. She has excelled at leading large, diverse real estate organizations and has served some of the most discriminating institutional investors.

Ms. Walraven founded Corporate Sustainability Strategies (CSS), a firm dedicated to providing best practice solutions for organizations by helping them develop and implement business case focused environmental, social, governance and resilience (ESG+R) strategies.

After almost 17 years with USAA Real Estate, Ms. Walraven’s clients today represent both publicly and privately held real estate companies, representing approximately $200 billion in Assets under Management (AuM) throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe.

To date, results include 25 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Awards and savings of over $50+ million in operating costs. Also, led via Ms. Walraven’s expertise, several clients have had consistent top performance recognition with the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB).
Ms. Walraven has served in various executive-level roles, including Head of Property Operations and Portfolio Manager, providing strategic leadership for national, multi-sector real estate portfolio. In these roles, she regularly engaged with investors, joint venture partners, development partners, and over saw property management, leasing, national accounts’ procurement, sustainability, risk management, and insurance for assets in every sector of real estate. She served on former California Governor Schwarzenegger’s Real Estate Leadership Council and has testified before Congress on issues of efficiency and sustainability.
In addition to serving on several Advisory Boards, being an accomplished author, a sought-after speaker, and an instructor for over 25 years, Ms. Walraven thoroughly enjoys helping organizations and teams pursue excellence and do well by doing good.

Professional Accomplishments

Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International
• Former Chair & Chief Elected Officer – 1st woman in 100-plus-year history of organization
• Executive Editor and Subject Matter Expert, BOMA Green Lease Guide 2018
• BOMA Fellow
• Founding Member & Former Chair, BOMA Energy Efficiency Program (BEEP)
• Developed BEEP, BEEP 2.0, BEEP for Industrial, BEEP Plus: Renewables & Clean Technologies, and BEEP Plus: Advanced Metering & Monitoring
• Founding Member & Chair, BOMA Energy Performance Contract (BEPC) Model Task Force
• Developed BEPC and created industry toolkit
• Founding Member, BOMA International Sustainability Task Force

BOMI International, Property and Facility Management Education
• Executive Editor and Subject Matter Expert in development of High-Performance Sustainable Buildings (BOMI-HP®) curriculum and instruction

Real Estate Forum’s 65th Anniversary
• Honoree for Next Generation of Leaders

Guest Lecturer
• Chapman University
• Columbia University
• New York University, School of Professional Studies, Schack Institute of Real Estate

Affiliations and Memberships

• BOMA International, Fellow
• BOMA Orange County, Advisory Board Chair
• BOMI International, RPA® and BOMI-HP® (high-performance sustainable buildings)
• California State University, Fullerton, Real Estate Land Use Institute, Advisory Board
• Fitwel, Ambassador
• Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), Benchmarking Committee for North America
• Green Seal, Board of Directors
• Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), Ally
• Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), CPM®
• Real Estate Roundtable, Sustainability Policy Advisory Council (SPAC)
• Urban Land Institute (ULI), Responsible Property Investing Council
• US Green Building Council (USGBC), Member

Education

University of Southern California (USC)
• Master of Business Administration (MBA), Finance & Real Estate
• Bachelor of Arts, Economics