Peer Group Formation

Introduction

GRESB assigns each participant to a peer group to contextualize their assessment results. Peer groups do not influence the GRESB Score, Star Rating, or points achieved, but help to put the GRESB Score into perspective relative to similar peers.

Every reporting entity can see the characteristics of its pre-defined peer group within its Benchmark Report.

Peer Group Formation

GRESB determines an entity’s peer group using a simple, consistent set of quantitative rules. The tables below illustrate the peer group creation process for the Infrastructure Fund, Asset, and Development Asset Assessments.

Each row in the table represents one ‘trial.’ The trial checks whether enough GRESB participants possess that row’s combination of characteristics.

If there are not sufficient entities with shared characteristics, one of the characteristics (e.g., region) will be removed from consideration.

GRESB will only create the entity’s peer group once:

• Six entities (the participant + five peers) match that combination, and

• Fewer than 50% of the entities in that group belong to the same company/fund

GRESB carries out this trial-and-error process individually for every reporting entity, meaning each entity’s peer group is uniquely its own. For example, just because Entity A has Entity B in its pre-defined peer group, Entity B might not have Entity A in its peer group. The groups are not ‘closed circles’ of entities.

The peer group allocation methodology moves from most to least specific when testing combinations of characteristics.

For location, these are (in order of sequence/specificity): country, subregion, region, and super-region/global.

• The country, subregion, and region are defined using the UN country classification guidelines available here. The only super-regions used are Asia Pacific, grouped from Asia (code 142 in the UN classification) and Oceania (code 142 in the UN classification).

For the sector, the most specific starting point is the subclass, followed by class, and finally super-class/diversified.

Infrastructure Fund Peer Group Allocation Logic

GRESB considers each fund’s primary location, primary sector, and legal status in forming its peer group. GRESB determines the fund’s primary sector and location based on its response to indicator RC3 (Sector & geography), and its legal status based on its response to indicator EC2 (Nature of ownership).

Trial#	Sector / Diversified	Region / Global	Legal Status
1	✓	✓	✓
2	✓	✓

Infrastructure Asset Peer Group Allocation Logic

GRESB considers each asset’s primary sector, primary location, and scope of service in forming its peer group.

Primary Sector: An asset’s Primary Sector is based on the most specific category that accounts for at least 75% of its Gross Asset Value (GAV), based on the gross asset value (GAV) of facilities reported to indicator RC3 (Sector & geography).

Primary Location: An asset’s Primary Location is based on the most specific category that accounts for at least 59% of its gross asset value (GAV), based on the gross asset value (GAV) of facilities reported to indicator RC3 (Sector & geography).

Scope of Service: An asset identifies its scope of service in indicator RC5 (Nature of entity’s business).

Trial#	Subclass	Class	Superclass/ Diversified	Country	Sub-region	Region	Super-region/ Global	Scope of Service
1	✓			✓				✓
2	✓				✓			✓
3	✓					✓		✓
4	✓						✓	✓
5	✓							✓
6	✓			✓
7	✓				✓
8	✓					✓
9	✓						✓
10	✓
11		✓		✓				✓
12		✓			✓			✓
13		✓				✓		✓
14		✓					✓	✓
15		✓						✓
16		✓		✓
17		✓			✓
18		✓				✓
19		✓					✓
20		✓
21			✓	✓				✓
22			✓		✓			✓
23			✓			✓		✓
24			✓				✓	✓
25			✓					✓
26			✓	✓
27			✓		✓
28			✓			✓
29			✓				✓
30			✓
31				✓				✓
32					✓			✓
33						✓		✓
34							✓	✓
35								✓
36				✓
37					✓
38						✓
39							✓

Infrastructure Development Asset Peer Group Allocation Logic

GRESB considers each development asset’s primary sector, primary location, and development phase in forming its peer group.

Primary Sector: An asset’s Primary Sector is based on the most specific category that accounts for at least 75% of its Gross Asset Value (GAV), based on the gross asset value (GAV) of facilities reported to indicator RC3 (Sector & geography).

Trial#	Subclass	Class	Superclass/ Diversified	Country	Sub-region	Region	Super-region/ Global	Development Phase
1	✓			✓				✓
2	✓				✓			✓
3	✓					✓		✓
4	✓						✓	✓
5		✓		✓				✓
6		✓			✓			✓
7		✓				✓		✓
8		✓					✓	✓
9			✓	✓				✓
10			✓		✓			✓
11			✓			✓		✓
12			✓				✓	✓
13				✓				✓
14					✓			✓
15						✓		✓
16							✓	✓
17	✓			✓
18	✓				✓
19	✓					✓
20	✓						✓
21		✓		✓
22		✓			✓
23		✓				✓
24		✓					✓
25			✓	✓
26			✓		✓
27			✓			✓
28			✓				✓
29				✓
30					✓
31						✓
32							✓

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