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REIT returns fell in February as macroeconomic factors continued to dominate investor sentiment.

The total returns of the FTSE Nareit All REITs Index fell 7 percent in February, while the S&P 500 fell 3.7 percent.

Total returns of the FTSE Nareit All Equity REITs Index fell 7.3 percent in February. The total returns of the FTSE Nareit Mortgage REIT Index fell 3.3 percent in the month.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose 0.2 percent in February.

Bill Meaney, president and CEO of Iron Mountain Inc. (NYSE: IRM), joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 CEO Forum & Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C.

Meaney provided an overview of operations, noting that Iron Mountain’s core hard document storage business continues to grow in virtually every market, both mature and emerging.

At the same time, the company is seeing growth in new areas of operation, including fine art storage and records storage for the federal government.

Matthew Lobach, director of sustainability at Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE: HT), joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 ESG Forum in Seattle.

Lobach discussed EarthView, Hersha’s sustainability and ESG program. He noted that one tenet of the program is quantitative methodology, which is used to measure financial as well as environmental and community impact.

Micah Brill, vice president at ULI Greenprint, joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 ESG Forum in Seattle.

Brill explained that the mission of ULI Greenprint is to work with the real estate industry to help support a 50 percent emissions reduction by 2030.

As part of that effort, Brill stressed the importance of internal and external benchmarking.

Daniele Horton, head of sustainability at Parkway Properties, Inc., joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 ESG Forum in Seattle.

Parkway’s portfolio consists of the Houston-based assets that were spun off into a new REIT following the 2016 merger between Cousins Properties Inc. (NYSE: CUZ) and Parkway Properties, Inc. Last year, Parkway was purchased by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Cynthia Figge, co-founder and CEO of CSRHub, joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 ESG Forum in Seattle.

Figge described CSRHub, which she co-founded in 2007, as the “largest aggregation of ESG metrics worldwide.” CSRHub rates 17,000 companies on ESG measures and aggregates data from more than 500 sources, she noted.

According to Figge, companies that are high performers are performing well across all dimensions of ESG, “and that’s really tough to do because it’s very hard work.”

Jeannie Renne-Malone, vice president for sustainability at Prologis (NYSE: PLD), joined Nareit for a video interview at Nareit’s 2018 ESG Forum in Seattle.

Prologis has won the Leader in the Light award for the industrial sector every year since 2012. According to Renne-Malone, engagement with stakeholders has been key to Prologis’ success.