Part 4: The Greenwashing of Vornado Realty Trust
In April 2025, Vornado Realty Trust released its annual sustainability report, proudly promoting its “sustainability credentials,” “renewable energy use,” and “eco-friendly development.” But behind the polished language lies a familiar tactic: greenwashing, a practice in which companies exaggerate or misrepresent their environmental responsibility to generate good press and attract investors. In reality, many of Vornado’s development projects are far from sustainable—and in some cases, actively harmful to the environment.
Vornado’s glossy certifications don’t necessarily translate into meaningful real-world change. In this year’s report, the company declared itself “the first major real estate company in the U.S. to achieve LEED certification across its entire in-service portfolio.” Yet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) ratings often have little correlation with actual carbon reductions. The LEED point system disproportionately rewards non-energy-related features, such as proximity to public transit or educational signage. Multiple studies have found that LEED-certified buildings don’t consistently use less energy, and some consume more per square foot than comparable non-certified buildings. Thus, Vornado’s boasts do not guarantee that its buildings are genuinely energy-efficient in practice.
Indeed, many of Vornado’s properties fail to comply with New York City’s landmark Local Law 97 (LL97), a stringent emissions regulation passed in 2019. Under LL97, buildings larger than 25,000 square feet must meet new greenhouse gas emissions limits. Initial targets began in 2024, with stricter limits coming into effect in 2030. Vornado owns 40 properties subject to this law, and several face large penalties unless they significantly reduce their carbon footprints. For instance, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, co-owned with Donald Trump, could face fines exceeding $800,000 annually due to excess emissions.
Similarly, Vornado’s claim that it uses “100% renewable energy” “sourced from hydroelectric, solar and wind facilities” is misleading. Vornado relies on renewable energy credits (RECs), marketable certificates that represent the environmental attributes of renewable electricity but are sold separately from the actual power. Companies can purchase RECs to symbolically support clean energy, without actually receiving any physical renewable electricity themselves. This tactic allows firms like Vornado to brand themselves as “net-zero” while continuing to power their buildings with fossil fuels. In practice, studies have shown that RECs do little to reduce real-world emissions, since the revenue they generate is typically too small to meaningfully increase renewable energy production. As a result, RECs have come under growing scrutiny for enabling corporate greenwashing and letting companies avoid more direct environmental action.
But questionable energy claims aren’t the only way that Vornado undermines its sustainability narrative. The company continues to prioritize demolition and large-scale redevelopment, practices that carry massive environmental costs. Tearing down existing buildings releases embodied carbon, which refers to the emissions generated in producing, transporting, and assembling construction materials. Embodied carbon is the largest and most often overlooked contributor to construction-related emissions. According to the American Institute of Architects, building reuse avoids 50 to 70% of these emissions by preserving the most carbon-intensive parts of the structure, such as the foundation and frame. By contrast, new construction involves energy-intensive processes that can add up to 30% more emissions than renovation. It can take up to 80 years for a new building’s superior energy efficiency to make up for the carbon cost of construction.
The greenest alternative is therefore adaptive reuse: renovating existing buildings, possibly with extensions or upgrades, to meet modern needs, while minimizing resource use. Retrofitting older buildings for energy efficiency can cut carbon emissions by half. As Carl Elefante, former president of the American Institute of Architects, famously stated, “The greenest building is the one that is already built.”
Yet Vornado has repeatedly chosen profit-driven redevelopment instead. A striking example is the 2023 demolition of the historic Hotel Pennsylvania to clear space for a new supertall skyscraper—a lot that remains vacant to this day. Vornado could have opted for a greener solution by transforming the hotel into a residential building, adding much-needed housing while conserving valuable resources. But for Vornado, continuously demolishing and rebuilding is far more profitable. The company has already demolished dozens of buildings across Manhattan and plans to remove 55 more as part of its expansive “PENN District” redevelopment.
The problem isn’t just demolition. It’s what gets built in its place: extremely tall towers. Comparative studies of the whole life cycle of carbon emissions show that high-density low rise cities like Paris are far more eco-friendly than high-density high-rise cities like New York. Transitioning from low-rise to high-rise development leads to an average 142% increase in total carbon emissions. That’s because taller buildings require deeper foundations, stronger structural support, and more raw materials, resulting in significantly higher embodied carbon per square meter. Vornado’s push to build ever taller is thus in itself an environmentally costly strategy.
To be fair, Vornado is a for-profit company whose core mission is to generate returns through real estate investment, so it’s hardly surprising that profit consistently overshadows environmental responsibility. The problem is that, through shiny reports, impressive certifications, and claims of energy-efficient development, Vornado presents itself to investors and tenants as a sustainability leader. Like many corporations, it uses environmental rhetoric as convenient cover for politicians and public officials who back its projects. The language of sustainability becomes a shield to mask the real consequences of its actions and sideline legitimate community concerns. Anyone who pushes back is painted as anti-environment—because no one wants to be seen as opposing “green” projects. But real sustainability means listening to communities, preserving resources, and prioritizing long-term environmental impact over short-term gain. Vornado’s version does none of that.
Understanding who Vornado is—and how it operates—is the first step toward a more transparent and community-driven development process in New York City. In the Vornado Watch series, we explore Vornado’s role in specific projects and unpack its political ties.