The GRESB Foundation Board is pleased to share that it recently completed its annual review of the proposed changes for the 2024 GRESB Standards. The Foundation Board and the Foundation Secretariat are extremely grateful to all the members of the Foundation, all of whom share a commitment to positive market transformation powered by transparency and competitive differentiation. Each of them has volunteered countless hours of their time to ensure the GRESB Standards remain independent, mission driven, investor led, and reflective of the industries and members.
GRESB Foundation 2024 Roadmap & 2024 Standards Changes
The GRESB Foundation just released its forward-looking 2024 Roadmap, which reflects upon future priorities for the Standards for the near- and longer-term future. The document also highlights the Foundation’s hierarchy of advisory groups that help evolve the Standards, alongside critical support from the industry.
GRESB also just released its much-anticipated 2024 Standards changes. Every year, as part of the annual standards development process, the Real Estate and Infrastructure Standards Committees review stakeholder feedback and potential improvements to the GRESB Standards. They then make recommendations of their endorsed changes to the Foundation Board, which ultimately determines the advancements to the Standards.
GRESB also recently announced a new Infrastructure Development Asset Assessment, which will launch in April 2024. This new assessment is designed to cater to pre-operational assets in the development and construction phase.
For a detailed description of the process, the objectives, and the changes, please visit our 2024 GRESB Standards – Roadmap, changes and events page. Please also see more information about how GRESB aligns with other ESG reporting frameworks.
Changes to the 2024 GRESB Standards – process and outcomes
During the annual development cycle, the Real Estate and Infrastructure Standards Committees are charged with reviewing stakeholder feedback, as well as potential improvements to the GRESB Standards. The Standards Committees then make recommendations of their endorsed changes to the Foundation Board, which ultimately determines the advancements to the Standards.
The changes for 2024 broadly cover residential real estate, energy consumption and performance, GHG performance, building certifications, TCFD alignment, physical climate risk and transition risk, and a solution for infrastructure under development.
This year, changes to the 2024 Real Estate Standards include:
- Defining validity periods and imposing an expiration for building certifications
- Introducing scoring for net-zero target setting
- Isolating EV charging station-related energy consumption from real estate asset operational energy consumption.
- Introducing scoring for energy efficiency as “supplemental” insight into operational performance of reported assets
- Introducing country-level benchmarking and scoring methodology, and providing additional insight into portfolio representativeness of intensity values in cases of incomplete data coverage by participants
- Allowing residential assets to report multiple energy ratings
- Expanding an indicator scope to cover strategy around climate-related opportunities
This year, changes to the 2024 Infrastructure Standards include:
- Introducing full new assessment for assets in the development phase, which will also affect the fund-level report
- Providing ability to report data coverage levels for Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, and offering more points to participants that report full data coverage for Scopes 1 and 2
- Providing ability for participants to describe the methodology to determine material Scope 3 emissions
- Providing an impact assessment of climate-related opportunities and introducing a score for the existing scenario analysis indicators
It is also worth noting that there is on-going research around the topics of biodiversity, diversity equity and inclusion, embodied carbon, data quality and supply chain management.
Please refer to the documents below for a detailed description of the changes across the GRESB Real Estate, Infrastructure Fund, and Infrastructure Asset Standards, including information on the background and purpose of the changes, a detailed description of each change, and the impact on scoring and requirements.
- GRESB Real Estate Standard – List of Changes
- GRESB Real Estate Standard – List of Changes Summary Table
- GRESB Infrastructure Fund Standard – List of Changes
- GRESB Infrastructure Fund Standard – List of Changes Summary Table
- GRESB Infrastructure Asset Standard – List of Changes
- GRESB Infrastructure Asset Standard – Materiality & Scoring Tool
- GRESB Infrastructure Asset Standard – List of Changes Summary Table
You can learn more about the GRESB Infrastructure Development Asset Standard, launched in April 2024, here.
GRESB Foundation update & 2024 Standards changes events
Please join us at one of upcoming GRESB Results events hosted in cities all around the world from October 24 through December 7. The events will provide an excellent opportunity to connect with other leaders in the sustainability industry, meet fellow participants, and to ask questions and provide feedback to GRESB. We look forward to seeing you – in person – soon!