Reporting period closes, SFDR assessments & asset estimations

What’s new in June

Next week the 2022 GRESB reporting period comes to an end, and initial indications suggest another year of strong growth in participation and a deepening commitment to ESG across sectors. 

While many GRESB Members and Partners are finalizing their submissions, we are looking forward to July, when we expect to announce the launch of the GRESB SFDR Assessment for real estate.

SFDR Reporting Solution

SFDR is a new transparency requirement for financial market participants doing business in the European Union. For asset managers, the main challenge will be to report on detailed product-level ESG characteristics (specifically Principal Adverse Impacts, or PAIs).

The GRESB SFDR Reporting Solution will help you comply with the regulation by helping you collect more accurate PAI statements from the start, future-proofing your reporting. 

GRESB’s Asset Estimation Model

What happens if data is missing for environmental PAIs, like GHG emissions of a building? In these cases, GRESB leverages its global database of more than 100,000 individual assets to provide an estimation based on a highly representative median intensity that avoids the worst effects of outliers. 

Learn more about GRESB’s Asset Estimation Model and how it makes SFDR reporting more accurate. (Want to be informed when the SFDR assessment is launched? Sign up here.)

GRESB Foundation 

Foundation Board

The GRESB Foundation has extended the nomination period to fill two open board vacancies. If interested, please apply here by July 17. 

Real Estate Standards Committee

Following stakeholder feedback, The Foundation Board has agreed to increase the size of the Real Estate Standards Committee by one member (to 16 in total), with an aim to address under-representation from the Oceania region. A new member will be selected using applications from the previous process and notified in due course. 

GRESB Standards Roadmap

The GRESB Foundation continues its work on the Standards Roadmap, building on the vision published earlier this year. A detailed update will be provided in July. 

GRESB, PCAF and CRREM Partnership

Since April 2021, GRESB has worked with PCAF and CRREM to develop technical guidance to financial institutions on accounting and reporting of financed GHG emissions from real estate operations. The GRESB Foundation encourages all interested stakeholders to provide feedback on the exposure draft of the guidance through June 28. Feedback will help inform the development of the Standards Roadmap.

Industry Engagement

To date, GRESB engagement with the industry has primarily been via the Foundation Board and Standards Committees, with Working Groups soon to be established. The GRESB Foundation recognizes a need for broader engagement with the industry and stakeholders beyond these formal groups and has agreed to:

• Hold regional information and Q&A sessions to educate stakeholders about the Foundation
• Hold regional feedback sessions to discuss stakeholder concerns and show how the Standards Roadmap is addressing them 
• Provide a forum for online engagement

Stay tuned for further information about this enhanced engagement.

Surveys & submissions

GIH Survey

The Global Infrastructure Hub invites you to participate in their Circular Infrastructure Survey, which aims to help shape the future of sustainable infrastructure. This five-minute survey will help shape recommendations and create resources to support future sustainable infrastructure.

Hong Kong ESG Reporting Awards (HERA)

This year, HERA is collaborating with GRESB to launch two new award categories, namely, “Excellence in Real Estate” and “Excellence in Infrastructure”. The two awards will use information from the GRESB Assessment results to determine eligible companies based on their GRESB Score and GRESB Rating. A 10% discount is available for early submissions of entries, received on or before 30 June 2022. The final deadline for entry submission is 31 July 2022. Find out more here.

GRESB Real Estate Assessment Residential Sector Survey

We recognize the importance of the residential sector and value its contribution to the GRESB Benchmark. We created a brief research survey to collect initial feedback from the GRESB network with regard to the sector. (Due July 15th)

GRESB Insights

Through GRESB Insights, we seek to highlight case studies on ESG integration in real assets, data-driven analyses of how the industry is responding to sustainability challenges, and educational articles exploring topics covered in the GRESB Assessments. 

Below is our latest GRESB Insight and our newest case study.

• Engagement around ESG | Hoare Lea
• Investor case study: Victorian Funds Management | GRESB

The editorial topic for July is “Creating a Sustainability Roadmap”. If you would like to contribute to GRESB Insights, If you would like to contribute to GRESB Insights, please review our 2022 editorial calendar

Upcoming Events

Attenuation and adaptation: how the building sector can face the challenge in Europe | June 30 | Virtual  

• The OID will present the programme’s first major deliverables during the very first ESREI e-conference in which it will present its R4RE platform – Resilience for Real Estate – and two studies, one on decarbonizing the building sector across Europe and the other on the comparison that can be made between European DPEs. 

ESG Excellence Day | July 7 | München

• The ESG Excellence Day powered by Alasco brings together leading experts and pioneers in interactive workshops, curated “Ask the Expert” sessions, and networking.

Max Maywald, Real Estate Analyst at GRESB, will join the event to talk about ESG reporting and scorings with GRESB.

How do we make ESG credible in real estate? | July 7 | Virtual

• In collaboration with GRESB, Carbon Intelligence is organizing a webinar focused on common pitfalls in real estate ESG strategies and how to avoid them; demonstrating the value of ESG beyond reporting; using benchmarking and reporting to drive change; and implementing an ESG strategy.

Steven Pringle, Director of Member Relations at GRESB, will join as a speaker.

IMN’s Inaugural ESG and Decarbonization in Real Estate Forum | July 12-13 | California

• The forum will cover issues surrounding ESG, including impacts on development and investment, criteria for owners, managers, developers, and builders, best practices to improve your ESG score, how to manage disclosures and reporting, impacts on residential and commercial markets, and strategies around closing the gap between profitability, sustainability and making real commitments to social change.

Dan Winters, Senior Director - Strategic Initiatives at GRESB, will join as a speaker

QUANTREFY ImpaQt Day | July 13 | Frankfurt

• This event is intended to help QUANTS get the most out of their work with QUANTREFY. With the help of valuable impulses from relevant scoring partners and ALLIES, the opportunity to help shape the platform for the future, and the informal exchange of previous experiences and best practices.

Max Maywald, Real Estate Analyst at GRESB, will join the event panel ‘understand & report GRESB with QUANTREFY’.

What do the SEC's climate disclosure rules mean for real estate? | July 19 | Virtual

•  Join EVORA in July for an online webinar, in conjunction with GRESB. TCFD Specialist and Erik Landry, Climate Change Specialist, GRESB, will provide a practical walk-through of the proposed SEC disclosure rules and what this means to commercial real estate.

Infralogic Investors Forum Asia-Pacific | July 25 | Singapore

• The Infralogic Investors Forum - Asia Pacific, will bring together global and local GPs, LPs, and infrastructure players for a day of exclusive networking and high-level insights into the Southeast Asian infrastructure deal landscape.

Discount code: GRESBIIFA

See our events calendar for a full overview of upcoming events.

Careers at GRESB

GRESB is growing and looking for new people! If you are interested in joining our team, have a look at our careers page to see all of our job postings. 

Our most recently added open positions:

• Manager, Member Relations | Asia
• Manager, Member Relations, Partners | Amsterdam
• Product Manager | Amsterdam

What we are reading 

Zurich Airport planning a sustainable wooden dock

Mobilist - How ESG strategies hurt emerging markets

ESG Today - Investor groups call to keep gas out of UK’s Green Taxonomy

Infrastructure Global - Industry unites against forced labour in global solar supply chain

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