Case Study: The Best Bees Company and Jamestown L.P.

The Best Bees Company and Jamestown

Jamestown, a global real estate investment and management firm, is committed to delivering an outstanding experience to tenants and employees and fostering a sense of community at its properties and in surrounding neighborhoods. The company regularly updates its ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) targets and has been recognized for its innovative and industry-leading approaches to sustainability.

Three Best Bees hives on the rooftop of a Jamestown property overlooking the San Francisco Bay in Levi’s Square.

Creating Vibrant Spaces to Live and Work

Honey beehives are one of the company’s distinct sustainability-focused amenity programs. In 2019, Jamestown partnered with The Best Bees Company to install three data-yielding beehives at Levi’s Plaza in San Francisco, California. The iconic property was a fitting choice for this innovative pollinator program, as it is on track to be the first existing, large-scale commercial campus in San Francisco to reach net zero operational carbon.

“We needed a partner who understands real estate and the specialized needs of a landlord of multi-tenant buildings.”

— Becca Rushin, Director of ESG, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility at Jamestown

Jamestown wants to work with partners that care about the environment and have innovative business models that make its properties more exciting places to work and play. Best Bees showed that it could deliver both an exceptional pollinator program with significant, visible impact and services to engage & educate stakeholders.

Going Big With Little Bees

Close-up of lots of worker bees and their queen bee, marked by a yellow dot on her head — Close-up of worker bees and their queen, marked by a yellow dot, from The Exchange at Larkspur Landing — a Jamestown property in Larkspur, CA.

From that initial project, the company has accelerated its commitment to pollinators. In 2020 and 2021, Best Bees installed beehives across nine Jamestown commercial properties. From One Metro Center in Washington, D.C. to Rialto on New Montgomery in San Francisco, the beekeeping programs are powering a greener future.

Bees are a great way for Jamestown to demonstrate how the company can get creative when it comes to engaging its tenants.

Tenants care about sustainability initiatives and want to see that their landlord is being proactive. Jamestown’s beekeeping programs are more than an amenity to tenants — they are a representation of shared values and environmental stewardship.

How Are the Bees Doing? The Data Tells Us

honeydna pie chart report taped up on yellow wall background — Mock-up of a Best Bees HoneyDNA report.

Because Best Bees takes a data-driven approach to beekeeping, the pollinator program can be measured for its impact on sustainability. Best Bees conducted a HoneyDNA analysis on the Levi’s Plaza hives, with the results integrated into a custom Bee and Biodiversity report.

The report lets tenants, employees, and investors know how the bees are doing, what plants they are feeding off of, and how much honey they are producing.

Seeing Is Believing

Tenants can get an up-close view of their hives, too. Each property in the portfolio is holding custom hive tours, conducted by Best Bees’ professional beekeepers. These engaging experiences consistently rank as favorite events among tenants. The beehives and pollinator habitats serve as a fun way to engage tenants and employees around issues of biodiversity and how property landscaping can provide habitat for pollinators and other species.

co-branded best bees honey with Levi's Plaza, honey jars stacked in a pyramid — Co-Branded Best Bees honey with the Jamestown property Levi’s Plaza.

A Closer Look At the Numbers: Levi’s Plaza in San Francisco

Exceptional honey production — 100+ pounds of honey (8x the amount of harvestable honey we typically see in a beehive!)
136 million flowers pollinated
Healthy hives — Winter survival across all three beehives