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GRESB Newsletter | A collective industry effort to advance sustainable real assets in a changing world.

Published on 26 May 2021

A collective industry effort to advance sustainable real assets in a changing world.

As you read this newsletter, the GRESB Portal is a hive of activity with real estate and infrastructure managers completing their 2021 Assessments. After a turbulent year, we’re inspired to see the collective industry effort from across the globe to prioritize sustainability and improve ESG transparency. We stand at a point where interest in ESG is at an all time high.

The regulatory environment is also shifting; a growing number of regulations are accelerating the move towards more accountability surrounding ESG in capital markets. After proactively monitoring, engaging and complying with the legislative proposals related to the EU’s wider Sustainable Finance Framework, we’re introducing an EU Regulatory (SFDR) Reporting Solution to help GRESB participants to meet their regulatory disclosure obligations. Find out more here.

For our Members needing support with  the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), we’re also developing a reporting solution for you. Read more here.

Transition Risk is another topic that is high on GRESB’s agenda. We are working on better understanding what are the real estate industry’s needs in relation to transition risk analytics built from the bottom-up, leveraging on CRREM’s decarbonization pathways. If you have interest in discussing this with GRESB, please feel free to contact us.  

Response Check Reminder

We still have slots available for the Response Checks. Response Checks will be carried out by our third party validation service provider (SRI) and feature a careful review of your Assessment response followed by a 1-hour discussion call. The deadline for requests is June 1, with a limited number of slots available. Find out more here.   

Listed Companies: Your ESG Public Disclosure evaluation is ready for review.

If you are a listed property or infrastructure company, GRESB has collected information on the transparency of your sustainability practices sourced from your website, sustainability reports, annual reports and other public records, in order to benchmark your ESG disclosure.  This information is available for your review in the GRESB Portal. Please review and update this information before July 1, when the Portal closes and we begin the process of validating, scoring and benchmarking the data, and providing the results to our Investor Members. Please see the Public Disclosure Reference Guide for Infrastructure and Real Estate for more information.

If you have any questions about the 2021 Assessments or any feedback for us, please contact the GRESB Helpdesk at any time. 

Best regards,

GRESB

GreenBizz 30 Under 30

GRESB’s very own Climate Change Specialist – Erik Landry – has made it to GreenBiz Group 30 under 30 list! These include individuals breaking new ground in sustainable business and who are testing the boundaries of sustainability in business through their everyday work. Congratulations Erik

Training and Q&A Sessions

On May 11 and 12, we held  another round of Q&A sessions for the Real Estate and Infrastructure Assessments. If you were unable to attend this round of training Q&A sessions and would like to access the recordings, you can do so via the links below;

New Members: Welcome to GRESB

Brazil Green Building Council  – Real Estate Industry Partner 
Being a Green Building Council it was only natural to formalize our partnership with GRESB. GRESB brought a practical and well defined language for the ESG discussion, which allows the Real Estate Industry to continuously implement improvements on a portfolio- and asset level. We believe in a quick growth of Brazilian participants in the  next ratings since a good performance means competitive differentiation for acquisitions, asset negotiations, stock market sustainability index participation and others.On the other side, advancing on the ESG discussion will accelerate the green building growth and will bring us new opportunities.

Atlas Capital Team L.P. – Real Estate Investor Member
Global Carbon Exchange – Real Estate Partner 
Greenrock LLC – Real Estate Partner
Inspired Energy plc – Real Estate Premier Partner
MFS Investment Management – Real Estate Investor Member 
Smartvatten – Real Estate Premier Partner
Stok LLC – Real Estate Partner
TD Asset Management Inc. – Real Estate Investor Member
Warburg Invest AG – Real Estate Investor Member 

Vacancies

Interested in joining the team? Check out our current vacancies below

GRESB Insights

ESG Reporting

GRESB Insights provides case studies on ESG integration in real assets, data-driven analysis into how the industry is responding to the sustainability challenge and educational articles exploring topics covered in the GRESB Assessments.

The topic for the month of April was “ESG Reporting.”  You can access all GRESB Insights posts here.

GRESB, CRREM and PCAF Join Forces

Impact Investor Forum: Virtual Experience 2021 | May 26

  • The Impact Investor Forum will be taking place virtually for the first time, and will mobilize private market institutions to engage with the growing momentum in impact investments and allocations. Charles van Thiel, Director, Real Estate will be speaking. 

ULI Europe Digital Programme: Measuring Social Value – Taking stock of industry best practice | May 26

  • This webinar will provide a better understanding of the new approaches being used to identify and describe social value, as a panel of experts assess and identify the means by which social value can be implemented and measured in real estate development. Roxana Isaiu, Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), GRESB will be speaking.

The Role of Energy Efficiency in meeting Decarbonization Goals | May 26

  • This webinar will seek to unpack the importance of energy productivity in buildings in meeting net zero carbon goals. 

Infrastructure Investors Forum: Energy & Renewables Asia | June 2

  • The inaugural Infrastructure Investors Forum: Energy & Renewables Asia will offer high-level discussions and networking opportunities for global energy investors and financiers.

Independent Design Reviews; why, what and how. | June 3

  • Design review panelist Greg Waring will talk you through the process of an Independent Design Review (IDR) for office buildings, illustrated with typical examples from Verco’s experience. 

RIA Virtual Conference | June 7 – June 11 

  • This year, the summit will include 10+ live webcasts with national and international experts, which will run from Monday, June 7th to Friday, June 11th, plus a primer session on June 4th.

Sustainable Investing in Renewable Energy and Infrastructure | June 8

  • The Green Deal puts the EU on a path to climate neutrality by 2050, through deep decarbonization of all sectors of the economy. The energy and infrastructure system is critical to achieving these goals. Rick Walters, GRESB’s Chief of Standards and Innovation will be speaking at this event.

Infrastructure Investor Forum: Americas | June 9 

  • The 13th Annual Infrastructure Investors Forum: Americas will focus on the crossroads that both technology disruption and the aggressive climate change initiatives that are changing the game for infrastructure investments. 

ESG IN REAL ESTATE SUMMIT | June 16 – June 17 

  • The ESG in Real Estate Summit explores the convergence of global challenges, capital markets, real estate and technology. Ruben Langbroek, GRESB’s Head of Asia Pacific will be speaking at this event.

Infrastructure Investors Forum: Europe​​​​ | June 16

  • The event will bring together over 500 senior representatives from the infrastructure community. Network with the industry’s top fund managers, institutional investors, infrastructure corporates & developers, funders, advisors & government officials to discuss the business-critical issues, challenges and opportunities facing the European infrastructure industry.

INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTORS FORUM: ASIA | August 2 

  • The 4th Infrastructure Investors Forum: Asia, will be returning as a hybrid event in August, bringing together global and local GPs, LPs, and infrastructure players for an in-depth one-day discussion into the Southeast Asian infrastructure landscape and beyond.

For a more detailed overview of GRESB upcoming events please visit our events page

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