Green Bonds: Costs and Benefits of Issuance and Investment
GRESB Green Bond Working Group, January 2016 The third meeting of the GRESB Green Bond Working Group (GBWG) addressed the costs and benefits of green bond issuance and investment. GRESB presented original research on the performance of corporate real estate green bonds, sharing its findings on the quantitative costs and benefits identified, to date. Speakers, […]
Green Bonds: Metrics—Identifying Eligible Green Projects and Reporting
The Green Bond Principles (GBPs) require clear environmentally sustainable benefits and where feasible, these should be quantified or assessed by issuers. The GRESB Green Bond Guidelines for the Real Estate Sector take this suggestion one step further by recommending use of: Rigorous green building certification systems (e.g. BREEAM, Green Star, LEED) and/or Energy ratings (e.g. […]
…is high returns at low risk (volatility). Sure, that’s the starting point and so-called fiduciary duty of pension funds, insurance companies, and the investment managers that invest their capital. But increasingly, investors also want the companies and funds that they invest in to show what these investments do when it comes to environmental, social and […]
What’s in a Target? Investors Expect Significant Carbon Reductions from Real Estate Sector
Last week, PGGM Investments, a EUR190 billion Dutch pension fund, announced that over the next 5 years, it is seeking a 50% reduction in carbon emissions from its investments in real estate – both listed property companies and private equity real estate funds. This is the world upside down: typically corporates make announcements for energy […]
GRESB Infrastructure: Filling an ESG Data Gap for Infrastructure Investors
Hot on the heels of the release of the 2015 GRESB data for real estate on September 2, GRESB has more news to share. Today, in London, GRESB announces a new initiative to provide environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information for investors in and lenders to infrastructure assets and portfolios. This initiative is called GRESB […]
A Sneak Preview of the 2015 GRESB Results: Global Leadership and a Record-Breaking Response
GRESB has a simple but powerful mission: Create better built environments by enabling institutional investors with actionable information about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on their real estate investments. GRESB carries out this mission with a systematic process to assess, score, and benchmark property companies and funds around the world. GRESB members use this […]
Energy Efficiency Shows Its Worth for Retail Property
Retail buildings are typically the largest consumers of energy in the property industry. The Carbon Trust recently stated that the 40 largest shopping centres in the UK consume £40 million worth of energy per year and that for most retailers reducing energy consumption by 20% would have an effect on the bottom line equivalent to […]
Real Estate Lending and ESG: Observations from the 2015 GRESB Debt Survey
Over the past three months, I’ve been speaking with real estate debt fund managers about the new GRESB Debt Survey, an assessment designed to evaluate and benchmark, but also, to guide, the sustainability engagement and performance of real estate lenders. Recognized as “at least a decade behind the equity side of real estate,” sustainability integration […]
Resilience: Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Change
Thinking about disasters is a hard sell. But whether we think about them or not, we pay for them. According to the 2015 UNISDR Global Assessment Report, expected annual global losses are estimated to reach $314 billion in the built environment alone. All indicators suggest that the frequency and intensity of disasters will increase, meaning […]
