Hi! My name is Alissa Sakamoto and I am a junior Business Administration Marketing major and CCI minor. Here at Chapman, I am currently working within the CCI department as a Research Assistant and will be completing training to become a Peer Advisor to help guide CCI students on their journey through the minor program. Ever since I took Introduction to Museum Studies freshman year, I knew my CCI minor was going to be a major part of my college experience. While completing Museum Studies, I was recommended to take CCI 203 Contemporary Issues in Creative and Cultural Industries: Sustainability by Dr. Jamie Larkin. As a Business major,
I always had an interest in companies’ Corporate Carbon Footprints and the effects of unsustainable and unethical business practices. It became clear during this course that I wanted to apply to an internship that dealt with corporate sustainability within Silicon Valley. This is when I found an internship as a Marketing and Operations Assistant for the real estate company Coldwell Banker at their San Francisco and Cupertino offices.
Why is sustainability within the real estate industry important?
Sustainable building practices within real estate development have become increasingly popular over the past decade. Considering green building is one of the fastest growing fields in the country, it is likely that we will see green building trends in the housing market. This is extremely important especially in cities like San Francisco and San Jose because the Bay Area and many other urban parts of California are beginning to expand as people move to outlying areas in search for lower-cost housing and job opportunities. With new developments in these areas, sustainable architecture can help ensure lower-energy consumption and longer infrastructure lifetimes. Though I did not work in commercial real estate, sustainable commercial real estate is extremely important for businesses within the creative industries. Operating out of large buildings such as manufacturing warehouses, storefronts, and other building types has significant effects on the environment. This is important because in order for America to sustain its capitalist economy, new and existing businesses, especially in urban areas, need to adopt sustainable infrastructure to keep the ecosystem balanced. Businesses within CCI sectors need to take their energy consumption into account when producing goods and services, and infrastructure is the starting point for energy management.
My Experience at Coldwell Banker
As an Intern, I gained experience by helping sell properties with smart-home sustainable technologies to broad and targeted demographics within the San Francisco region. Programmable thermostats, solar panels, geothermal heat pumps, and eco-landscaping were few of the many green technologies and sustainable home amenities that were built-in or remodeled to sell to homebuyers. On the creative side of the job, I helped create marketing campaigns to new and existing clients looking to buy or sell their home. For these campaigns, I collaborated with various local creatives such as stagers, interior designers, and artists to prepare homes for broker tours, open houses, and final sales. For one creative campaign, my boss and I created a program where we would plant a tree for every home sold in the name of the homebuyer. We created this program as a closing gift for her clients. This would help remind them to be environmentally aware that properties take up a large portion of the ecosystem and that it is our responsibility as humans to help repair our ecosystem.
Overall, working at Coldwell Banker was truly an amazing opportunity. Working in my hometown for the summer was very gratifying and helped me learn a lot about the Bay Area community that I didn’t know before. The company aligns themselves with strong ethical morals as they have a mission to “embrace environmentally responsible practices that help our neighborhoods, cities and planet, with sustainability initiatives that include digital technologies to reduce paper use, eco-friendly office products and practices, and telecommuting, teleconferencing, and teletraining”(Coldwell.com). Combining the knowledge I obtained from my CCI classes with my business knowledge was extremely vital for me to excel in this role since it taught me the importance of corporate sustainability and ethical decision-making in the context of the creative and cultural industries. I think that CCI students have special opportunities because the skills we are learning can help us see new and inventive ways to approach our majors, even in areas that are not traditionally thought of as creative. If there is an area of CCI that sparks your interest, talk to your CCI professors about ideas for research or internships that collaborate your interest and your major. And if you have an awesome internship, or CCI story, let us know! You can reach out to us at the following emails: pcoelho@chapman.edu, asakamoto@chapman.edu or cci@chapman.edu