Where GRESB and the Market Are Headed
As an industry-governed leader in real asset sustainability, GRESB holds market signals at the core of its evolution.
As the real asset market moves from disclosure toward risk pricing, capital allocation, and operational performance intelligence, GRESB is evolving from an annual benchmark into a continuous decision engine, transforming sustainability data into decision-grade intelligence for capital allocation and asset improvement.
The strategy is organized around three areas of customer and market value:
- Capital. GRESB connects credible, comparable sustainability performance to capital allocation, investment, risk, and portfolio decisions, informing how capital is directed and accessed.
- Cost. GRESB helps improve the economics of owning, operating, and financing real assets through greater operating efficiency, reduced costs, stronger resilience, and lower cost of capital.
- Comparability. GRESB creates a credible common lens for sustainability performance across real assets through its industry-governed standards and established benchmarks, enabling consistent comparison across assets, portfolios, sectors, and markets.
These priorities respond to a world that wants high-quality data faster, focused on material financial issues, delivered in ways that contribute to value while reducing costs.
How that’s being delivered:
1. Methodology: Redefining Leadership through the Road to Performance
Fundamentals
Formalizing management practices, policies, and governance that make performance intentional, reliable, and repeatable as prerequisites in the Standard.
Decarbonization
Rewarding the industry for real-world decarbonization outcomes via high-performance achievement.
Confidence Layer
Elevating the role of data quality in performance measurement and reward to ensure impact is reliable
2. Ambition: Accelerating
Value Creation
An ongoing, modular, year-round assessment makes performance information available when decisions are being made. It enables timely investor–manager conversations and supports better investment decisions with the latest information.
2026 Benchmark Snapshot
Drawing on the largest real assets sustainability dataset, GRESB’s 2026 results show an industry ready for a more performance-based assessment:
- 200+ real asset entities from across the globe participated for the first time: 46% from Europe, 26% from Americas, 21% from Asia, 6% from Oceania.
- 94% of new participants achieved Fundamentals, GRESB’s set of 17 core management indicators, in their first year.
- Average energy data coverage rose from roughly 84% to above 87% globally in 2026.
- 72% of participants now verify or assure their energy and emissions data, up from 66% in 2025.
Robust data coverage, quality data, and strong Fundamentals achievement mean the market is ready for the next phase: measuring real-world decarbonization outcomes.
Where the Market Stands Today on the Road to Performance
The GRESB Standard is evolving. The 2028 Standard formalizes sound management practices as prerequisites (Fundamentals) and shifts meaningful weight toward real-world decarbonization outcomes: energy efficiency, electrification, and clean energy.
| Where the Market Is | The Market Ambition |
|---|---|
| Nearly half of real estate assets assessed in 2026 are already recognized as highly energy efficient or improving year over year | All assets are efficient or improving. |
| Electrification averages roughly 75%, varying by property type and climate zone. | On-site combustion is eliminated. |
| 29% of assets globally report renewable energy. | Energy demand is met through credible clean electricity. |
| Infrastructure GHG emissions intensity fell roughly 10% across every sector. | Assets reach near-zero greenhouse gas emissions. |
GRESB Data: Driving Smarter Markets
New GRESB research shows how grid trajectories can inform smarter real estate capital planning.
The study brings together two asset-level datasets within GRESB for the first time: GRESB Real Estate Assessment asset-level data on building energy use and performance, comprising more than 800,000 annual asset records, and Asset Impact’s forward-looking data on more than 150,000 power plants across 217 countries and territories.
Together, they address a practical investment question: how much of an asset’s future decarbonization can be delivered by changes in the electricity grid, and where will additional investment in efficiency, electrification and on-site clean energy be most impactful?
2026 Insights Events
Join us at one of GRESB’s global in-person events for a deeper look at the story shared here, including regional breakdowns and sector-by-sector performance. Join a Regional Insights Event.
Talk to our team
GRESB is the global sustainability intelligence standard for real assets. Together, we’re delivering a shared vision: an investment community that plays a central role in creating a more sustainable world.