DR1: Asset Characteristics
Assessment Instructions
Participants must report this metric at the asset level.
GRESB automatically populates this indicator in the assessment response once participants have aggregated asset-level data from the Asset Portal.
When using the Asset Spreadsheet to upload asset-level data, GRESB recommends reviewing the instructions below in conjunction with the corresponding spreadsheet tab. The Cell Code column in the Input section indicates where to report each metric in the spreadsheet.
Asset Portal Guide Click here to download a read-only version of the Asset Spreadsheet.
Composition of the entity’s development projects portfolio during the reporting year
Do not edit.
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Drop-down
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Year
%
Date - only if in the reporting year
Date - only if in the reporting year
Currency in RC1 in millions
m2 / Sq. Ft
Input: How do I complete this indicator?
Warning: Review Scope Requirements
GRESB requires property companies and funds to report on their whole portfolio; this includes all development real estate assets held during the reporting year. See What are the participation requirements?for more information.
Data
Cell Code
Instructions
GRESB Asset ID Mandatory
B4
This ID is used to identify and update the data from existing assets. Important: Do NOT provide your own Asset ID. This field is populated by GRESB only. To view GRESB Asset IDs for existing assets, download your data in Excel from the Asset Portal or click on the assets in the Asset Portal. Handling Asset IDs in the Asset Spreadsheet:
For new assets: To add new assets (not uploaded onto the GRESB Asset Portal in the past), leave this field blank. The GRESB Asset Portal will create a new asset and will generate a new Asset ID.
For existing assets: To update an existing asset in the GRESB Asset Portal, leave the same GRESB Asset ID as the one allocated by the Portal when exporting and re-importing your data.
To delete assets: To delete an asset (and corresponding Asset ID), go to the individual asset in the GRESB Asset Portal, click on 'Manage' and 'Delete'. Once deleted, the asset cannot be recovered.
Asset Name Mandatory
C4
Input the name of the asset as displayed to the users with access to this portfolio in the Asset Portal.
Optional Information
D4
Enter any supplementary text for internal use. GRESB does not use or share this information.
Property Type Mandatory
E4
Select the appropriate Property Sub-Type representing the asset. All Property Sub-Type definitions are available here.
Guidance for mixed-use assets:
If an asset is composed of two or more property sub-types (e.g. office and retail), but the asset's floor area sizes, consumption data and Gross Asset Value (GAV) can be allocated separately for each sub-type, participants can represent such asset in separate rows (e.g. one row for office, another row retail). This type of reporting will generate two asset IDs and will allow a more granular benchmark group classification.
If an asset is composed of two or more property sub-types for which the split of floor area sizes and consumption data is not available, participants have the following choices, depending on the asset composition:
Choice 1: 75% (or more) of the asset floor area is Office; 25% (or less) is Retail - two options exist:
Report the asset as Office (and include the entire asset’s floor area)
Report the asset as mixed-use: Office/Retail
Choice 2: 74% (or less) of the asset floor area is Office; 25% (or more) is Retail - one option exists:
Report the asset as mixed-use: Office/Retail
When reporting assets as Mixed-Use, use the specific mixed-use category that best reflects the asset composition (e.g., "Mixed Use, Office/Residential," "Mixed Use, Office/Industrial," or "Mixed Use, Other").
Guidance for unit consolidation - applicable to Residential Portfolios
Note that this guidance applies to participants in the Residential sector (particularly “Multi-Family” and “Family Homes”). Other assets or portfolios must report their asset data individually.
Reporting entities with Residential assets can consolidate multiple units into a single asset sharing similar characteristics as appropriate. Consolidating multiple units into one asset has an impact on the following mandatory elements: Location, Construction Year, Building Certifications, Energy Ratings, Vacancy Rate, GFA and Data Availability. Refer to the corresponding sections for guidance on each aspect.
Note: If the consolidation of multiple units creates discrepancies between the period of data availability and performance data reported, units must be reported separately.
Guidance for financial assets consisting of multiple properties - applicable to Business Parks and Industrial Parks:
Note that this guidance applies to participants reporting financial assets that consist of multiple properties (particularly Business Parks and Industrial Parks). Other assets or portfolios must report their asset data individually.
Reporting entities with financial assets that consist of multiple properties, for which individual property-level data cannot be obtained, can report the entire financial asset as one.
Note: If the consolidation of multiple properties creates discrepancies between the period of data availability and performance data reported, those properties must be reported separately.
Location: Country Mandatory
F5
The country where the asset is located, using the ISO 3166 country code.
Guidance for unit consolidation - applicable to Residential Portfolios
The unit or asset location should be provided as specific as possible, ideally based on street address. However, since only “Country”, “State/Province” and “City” are mandatory fields, multiple units from the same Property Sub-Type. (e.g. “Residential: Multi-Family: Low-Rise Multi-Family”; “Residential: Family Homes”, etc.) sharing the same city can be grouped together.
Location: State/
Province Mandatory
G5
The state, province, or region where the asset is located.
Location: City Mandatory
H5
The city, town, or village where the asset is located.
Location: Street Address Optional
I5
The physical or postal address of the asset. While optional, GRESB encourages participants to report the specific streed address for all assets. Doing so allows GRESB to geolocate assets with higher precision, improving the quality of asset-based insights we are able to provide. Such additional analysis will be limited to the accuracy of the geographical information provided by the GRESB participants.
Construction Year
J4
Not applicable to development assets.
Ownership
K4-M4
GRESB requires participants to report all assets owned by the reporting entity, including assets acquired and disposed of during the reporting year.
The length of the ownership period and the share of ownership are considered when aggregating portfolio level metrics: data coverage, like-for-like, etc.
% of Ownership Mandatory
K4
Report the percentage owned by the reporting entity in the corresponding asset, expressed in percentages. For example, if the % of ownership of an asset is 10%, report "10".
The % of ownership should reflect the ownership as of the last day the asset was held during the reporting year.
If the asset was owned throughout the entire reporting year, report the ownership percentage as of the end of the year.
If the asset was sold during the reporting year, use the ownership percentage immediately before the sale.
The % of ownership is a mandatory field and will be used to determine the weight an asset carries in the aggregation from asset-level to portfolio-level metrics. For guidance on Joint Ventures (JVs), please refer to the Scope & Structure page.
Owned Since/ Owned Until Only if in the asset was acquired or sold during the reporting year
L4-M4
If the entity owned the asset for the entire reporting period, leave columns L and M blank. The Asset Portal will automatically assume the asset has been owned for the entire reporting period.
If the entity acquired the asset during the reporting period:
Indicate the acquisition date in the "Owned From" column.
If the entity sold the asset during the reporting period:
Indicate the disposition date in the "Owned Until" column.
It is no longer necessary to delete sold assets from the GRESB Portal.
If the entity sold the asset before the reporting period:
Indicate the disposition date in the Owned Until column. If the disposition date is before the beginning of the reporting period, the GRESB Portal will automatically exclude the asset from the reporting boundaries.
Gross Asset Value Optional at the asset level; mandatory at the property sub-type | country level
N4
Report GAV values in millions, using the appropriate currency, as reported in indicator RC1. The value should always represent the total GAV of the entire development asset(s) at the end of the reporting year, regardless of % of ownership. If an asset was sold during the reporting year, its GAV should represent the value of the disposition date. This field remains voluntary at the asset level. If participants report asset-level GAV, GRESB will automatically calculate property sub-type | country GAV in the DR1 table. However, if GAV is not provided at the asset level, participants must report a single GAV or net operating income (NOI) value for each property subtype and country group to the DR1 table.
Asset Size (GFA) Mandatory
O4
Report the asset's total floor area (Gross Floor Area, GFA) regardless of % of ownership and using the same metric reported in indicator RC3. The value must be greater than zero. It is recommended to use the International Property Measurement Standard (IPMS) to determine the asset floor area. For the purposes of GRESB reporting, follow the guidelines outlined in IPMS 1. Guidance for outdoor/exterior areas
Outdoor/exterior areas must be excluded from the total asset size.
Indoor parkings must be excluded from the asset size if the participant intends to represent the parking as a separate property type (Other: Parking (Indoors) and report the asset as mixed-use (guidance above).
Indoor parkings must be included as part of the asset size if they are metered together with the central part of the asset.
Guidance for Estimating Asset Size If the participant only knows the Lettable Floor Area (LFA), or Tenant Spaces, they are allowed to estimate the size of their Common Areas using ratio ranges [Common Areas / asset size] pre-determined by GRESB. Ratio ranges for all property types can be found in the Real Estate Reference Guide - Appendix 5. These ratios are calculated based on actual reported data from past reporting years.
Example: Office building A has a LFA of 8,000 m2. The size of the Common Areas is unknown.
To calculate the total asset size, the participant estimates the size of the common areas to be approximately 27% of the total asset size.
Given that this ratio falls within the reasonable range of previous reported data to GRESB for Office buildings (ranging from 20% to 30%), this value is accepted by the GRESB Portal.
Finally, given that [Tenant Space] = [1 - 27%]*[asset size], the total asset size can be estimated as [asset size] = [(Tenant Space) / (1- 27%)] = [8,000 / (1 - 27%)] = 10,959 m2.
Note that if the participant knows the consumption split between Tenant Spaces and Common Areas for the asset and wishes to report them separately, the size of the Common Areas to be used for reporting may be calculated as [Common Areas] = [asset size] - [Tenant Spaces] = 10,959 - 8,000 = 2,959 m2.
Guidance for unit consolidation - applicable to Residential Portfolios
If the size of the asset is unknown, it can be estimated by multiplying the average size of the unit by the number of units in the building (this is often the case for multifamily assets).
Validation: What evidence is required?
Evidence
Document upload is mandatory for this indicator. The evidence must sufficiently support each of the values except “% GAV” reported in DR1, namely:
Property Types represented in the portfolio;
Countries per Property Type;
Number of assets per Property Type;
*Floor Area per Property Type
Participants are required to upload supporting evidence to explicitly corroborate their portfolio composition. The uploaded document should explicitly reconcile with the aggregated table in DR1. Participants can use the open text box to explain the document's purpose and provide relevant details to understand the reconciliation.
The supporting evidence must be a document that was not prepared solely for reporting to GRESB (except the signed statement - see below). Evidence examples can include, but are not limited to:
10K filings;
Complete audited financial statements with reference to balance sheet and relevant notes, breaking down the entity’s portfolio characteristics;
Section in the entity reporting to investors. Extracts that do not demonstrate the overall size of the portfolio will not be accepted.
Audit statements confirming the composition of the portfolio during the reporting year, including acquisitions and dispositions;
Signed statement from CEO or Senior Management confirming that the portfolio composition reported above is truthful, accurate, and complete, and it represents the entire portfolio during the reporting year. To ensure proper separation of duties between the employee involved in the GRESB reporting and the signatory, any senior role directly involved in the GRESB reporting process does not qualify. Statements signed by Assistant Fund Managers or Deputy Fund Managers are not sufficient. The statement should specifically list all property types, the total number of assets, and the floor area size by property type.
GRESB's Reporting Scope Evidence Template: GRESB provides a template statement that can be completed and uploaded to support DR1. Completed evidence templates should match the aggregated table in DR1 (which will appear after submitting the asset-level data).
Multiple documents can be uploaded. For each evidence uploaded, make sure to clearly indicate where (page number, paragraph) the relevant information can be found.
Situations where the supporting evidence could be inconsistent with the aggregation table include, but are not limited to:
*Different floor area:
Metrics: The supporting evidence provides the portfolio size in a different metric than GFA (gross floor area). For example, asset A's reported floor area (GFA) in GRESB is 10,000 m2, but the supporting evidence only displays its LFA of 8,000 m2. Justify the difference between the floor area sizes in the open text box.
Ownership Weighting: If using the Reporting Scope Evidence Template, participants must normalize the floor area by % of ownership in the evidence sheet. If participants submit other evidence to R1, GRESB does not require the floor area to be weighted by ownership.
Mixed-use assets: A single mixed-use property in the evidence is reported as separate property types in DR1 (e.g., retail and office). Justify differences in asset count and property types in the open text box.
Classification variations: The entity uses a property type classification different from GRESB. The GRESB property type structure follows a three-level hierarchy (see the Entity Classification page). For example, an entity owning 5 Industrial | Distribution Warehouses and 8 Industrial | Manufacturing assets has all 13 assets classified as Industrial in the evidence. Justify the difference in the number of assets and property types in the open text box.
GRESB reserves the right to use alternative sources of information to corroborate the composition of the portfolio for a subset of participants, such as publicly available reports and uploaded documentation in other sections of the GRESB assessment. Non-compliance with the GRESB reporting requirements may lead to a formal request from GRESB to adjust the entity’s portfolio boundaries or the rejection of the Development Component submission if necessary.
Scoring
This indicator is not scored.
Frequently Asked Questions
I’m a developer. Can I report assets I develop for investors in the Development Component, even if I don't own them?
Yes. GRESB recognizes the complex ownership structures often associated with development projects. Therefore, developers that exclusively develop assets on behalf of investors (i.e. with the investment from their investors) but would like to benchmark their development efforts (such as policies, strategies, etc.) are allowed to report these.
At what point in the development process is a project considered to be "completed" for GRESB reporting?
GRESB considers a project to be completed as soon as it is ready to be occupied by the tenants. From the completion day onwards, the GRESB Portal will require performance data if the reporting entity has chosen to submit the Performance Component.
Do I need to report assets that are still in the design stage and for which construction has not started if I'm participating in the Development Component?
Yes. The reporting scope includes assets that are under the design stage, as well as under construction and/or major renovations. For assets whose construction has not yet started and are part of a design process, entities are required to report these in the Assessment as soon as all mandatory parameters are available: property sub-type, location, floor area (GFA), and the asset's contribution to the fund-level GAV. Participants must exclude plain vacant land with no design project in progress, cash, or other non-real estate assets owned by the entity.
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