Michael Chang, first vp and head of sustainability and resilience at Host Inns & Resorts (Nasdaq: HST), sat down for a video interview at Nareit’s REITwise: 2026 Academic Convention in Hollywood, Florida, March 24-26.
Contemporary off Nareit’s 2026 Chief within the Mild Award within the operations class, Chang defined how Host is utilizing AI and real-time constructing information to uncover new effectivity alternatives throughout its resort portfolio. By way of linked sensors that monitor HVAC methods, central crops, and home sizzling water methods, Host can establish inefficiencies in actual time and assist resort engineering groups optimize operations.
“At three properties, we’ve been capable of keep away from 2,300 metric tons of carbon emissions, producing over $700,000 in annual utility financial savings,” Chang mentioned. He added that Host is now working to scale the initiative to roughly one-third of its lodges.
Chang famous that Host has already accomplished greater than 900 sustainability tasks over the previous six years, producing an estimated $24 million in annual utility financial savings. “We’ve taken care of plenty of lower-hanging fruit,” he mentioned, and AI-driven instruments are serving to the corporate proceed making progress.
On resilience, Host is more and more utilizing local weather analytics to information capital planning. The corporate now incorporates local weather danger information into portfolio screening, acquisitions due diligence, and insurance coverage modeling. By way of that work, Host just lately invested in measures designed to mitigate all 100-year flood danger throughout its portfolio.
“We view our portfolio as a residing lab,” Chang mentioned, pointing to pilots in battery storage, electrification, water administration, and superior constructing supplies that would finally scale throughout the corporate’s lodges.
