MOMENI Group, founded in 2004 and based in Hamburg, is one of the leading privately owned and operated investment managers focusing on prime office and commercial properties in inner-city locations of major German and selected European cities. Along with local and international partners, MOMENI invests in diverse real estate opportunities and establishes excellent, long-term relationships with global private and institutional investors.
Name: MOMENI Group
Interviewee name and title: Tristan Holtkamp, Head of ESG
GRESB Assessments or tool: GRESB Real Estate Assessment
AuM: EUR 7 billion
Region: Germany / Selective Europe
Reporting entity: MOMENI Prime Opportunities Fund I
Starting year with GRESB: 2022
Partner: Yes
What motivated you to start participating in the GRESB Assessments and what were you doing for ESG/sustainability prior to joining GRESB?
MOMENI recognized the importance of ESG factors and sustainability practices early on. We decided to participate in the GRESB Assessment to benchmark our funds and ESG performance against our peer group and to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability to investors and stakeholders.
Prior to joining GRESB, we had already implemented a range of sustainability practices including the development of our own ESG strategy, engaging with stakeholders, and formulating individual ESG policies for each of our business units.
Has your perspective on ESG reporting and benchmarks changed since starting GRESB? If so, how, and do you see things differently compared to when you started?
ESG reporting has always been essential to us. However, we recognized that participating in the GRESB Assessment provides us with a more rigorous and standardized approach for measuring and reporting our ESG performance and enables us to identify areas for improvement.
ESG reporting is gaining more importance and investors as well as tenants are increasingly interested in the ESG performance of our properties. Through our participation in GRESB, we have been able to benchmark our ESG performance and demonstrate our commitment to sustainability to our stakeholders.
What did you find most helpful when preparing and completing your assessment submission? What did you find most challenging?
The 2023 Real Estate Standard & Reference Guide and the Real Estate Scoring Document provided by GRESB were helpful. Having a consultant supporting us in better understanding the exact meaning of complex questions, especially for the first year participating in GRESB, was also useful.
One of the key challenges for us was to identify the right documents in our extensive dataset and ensure that the most important parts of these documents were available and easily understandable for GRESB as part of our submission. Moreover, collecting relevant information from all stakeholders and the development team was sometimes challenging. In this respect, it is important to connect with your colleagues internally to find the most accurate information as efficiently as possible and to provide adequate evidence.
Did you take advantage of the Grace Period or the Review Period?
We took advantage of the Grace Period, which did provide some peace of mind in our first year as it allowed us time to get familiar with the assessments and getting all the data in place.
What did you find most valuable in the resulting GRESB benchmarks and data and how have you been using them?
Participating in GRESB has provided us with valuable insights and learnings about our ESG performance and how we can improve our sustainability practices. Specifically, we have gained a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in our portfolio. This has allowed us to identify areas in which we can enhance performance and seize opportunities.
Practically, we are using the report to identify and then implement certain measures to improve our assets. An example of an opportunity we intend to address are stakeholder surveys. We are planning to run a tenant as well as another employee survey to better understand their needs and, based on the responses, increase satisfaction. Furthermore, we have used the report as a basis to discuss ESG topics both internally and outside of our company.
What are the most important insights or learnings you’ve uncovered with GRESB data? Especially in light of your strategy/property type.
GRESB data has helped us better understand the importance of engaging with our stakeholders, including tenants, employees, and investors, to focus on achieving better ESG outcomes and to improve our ESG performance. Reporting our ESG performance to our stakeholders allows us to create a shared sense of responsibility for sustainability.
Finally, participating in GRESB has reinforced our belief that ESG considerations are critical to long-term value creation. By further integrating sustainability into our overall business strategy and decision-making processes, we can improve our financial performance by mitigating risks and enhancing the resilience of our properties in the face of climate change and other ESG-related challenges.
How are you preparing for next year’s Assessments? Please share how you are leveraging your first-year results and learnings to prepare for your second-year submission.
We are proud to have already achieved a particularly good result in the 2022 assessment. For the assessment in 2023, we have carried out a gap analysis to get a better insight into how to improve our performance further. Also, we are discussing the potential of optimization with our investment and asset management team to implement measures for improving our ESG performance. The published list of changes, which was provided by GRESB in preparation for the 2023 GRESB Assessments, was a great help to structure this process.
Now that you have done GRESB, what advice would you have given yourself prior to doing the assessment?
Start early with the preparation of the assessment, leverage your internal and external network, and involve the relevant stakeholders in the company from the beginning to gather the information you need. Be prepared that it will be time-consuming, but it is absolutely worth it.