GRESB 2026 Sector Leaders

The GRESB Sector Leader Program recognizes leadership shown through the Assessments and incentivizes improvement among participants. In addition, each year GRESB publishes an online Assessment participant list and provides GRESB Rating logos and other marketing resources to support participants in communicating their results.

Towards a broader recognition of leadership

• Narrow definition of leadership: The current approach relies heavily on a single metric — the overall GRESB Score — when there are many examples of leadership that could also be recognized.
• Small distinction between leaders and non-leaders: In some cases, the difference between the highest-ranked entity and the next-best performer may be only a few decimal points, making the distinction between “leader” and “non-leader” relatively narrow.
• Limited recognition of broader performance: The current methodology places strong emphasis on identifying the “best” performer, while giving less recognition to entities that are showing significant improvement or consistently strong performance over time.

In order to respond to these concerns, and to improve the online participant lists and marketing resources for participants, we propose a new approach to recognizing leadership – one that distinguishes a broader range of behaviors and performance in the market.

The new approach includes the following recognitions:

GRESB Sector Leaders

This recognition is based on the GRESB Score but recognizes the highest scoring entities per sector/region/nature of ownership rather than just the single very best performing entity per category. The Sector Leader awards are selected based on the following criteria:

• Categories are unique combinations of sector, region and nature of ownership. Each category requires a minimum of 6 entities.
• Sector Leaders are determined for each region (Regional Sector Leaders) and globally (Global Sector Leaders), taking legal status into account. It is possible for the same entity to be recognized as both a Regional Sector Leader and a Global Sector Leader. Within each region, we need a minimum of 6 listed and 6 non-listed entities in order to assign Sector Leaders. If we do not have 6 entities within each sector, we disregard the legal status. If fewer than 6 entities remain within a sector, we do not assign a Sector Leader for that region.
• The entity with the top score, as well as the entities with a score within 1 point of the top score in a category will be recognized as Sector Leaders.
• The consequence of this approach is that some categories will have a single Sector Leader, while other categories will have multiple.

Example: If the top score in Office, Americas, Listed is 96.0000, all entities with a score above 95.0000 will also be recognized as Sector Leaders in this category. If the second highest score registered in this category is 94.9999, GRESB will only recognize one Sector Leader – the entity with a score of 96.0000. For the purposes of this analysis, GRESB will use scores rounded to the fourth decimal.

For Infrastructure Funds, categories are unique sectors at either the Region or Sector level (using the TICCS classification). Each category requires a minimum of six entities at the Sector level.

For Infrastructure Assets, categories are unique sectors at either the Industrial-group (Superclass) or Sector level (using the TICCS classification). Each category requires a minimum of 12 entities at the Sector level or six entities at the Industrial-group (Superclass) level. For sectors where there are fewer than six entities at the Industrial-group (Superclass) level, these entities will be bundled into an ‘Other’ group so every entity has an opportunity to be a Sector Leader.

Certificates and logos

We provide logo-style badges for each of the recognitions (ie: 2026 Sector Leader and 2026 GRESB-Score Infrastructure Fund) as well as marketing resources (such as example social media posts and press releases) to support communications.

Public Communication

We notify managers who have received recognitions in October. The listings are then  included on the public website, in press releases and shared with media partners. In the case of Sector Leaders awards, Managers may request that their recognition not be made public.

In the case of listed companies, we will disclose the name of the company. In the case of non-listed entities, we will disclose the name of the fund manager.

All managers and entities will be listed alphabetically and not in the order of the obtained scores. As such, no differentiation is made between the recognized entities.