C&W Perspectives

The direction of travel is clear: companies and funds who are best utilising this data will be at a competitive advantage and their property investments will be more resilient. Investors are acutely aware of this and wider government and societal pressure to address climate change. As investors build this new information into their investment procedures expect to see continued expansion of what they want to know about real estate assets. Alongside utilities performance expect to see focus on KPIs relating to health and wellbeing in coming years. GRESB for example is already trialling building in health and wellbeing into its overall scoring methodology. Traditional measures of environmental impact will therefore be presented in the context of additional considerations such as CO2 and lighting levels which in turn link to sickness rates, staff retention and productivity. All of which means those with the most robust and advanced tools in this space will be best placed to unlock the hidden value hidden in the rising ocean of ESG data. New and future data requirements The rise to prominence of sustainability benchmarks and reporting frameworks. GRESB or GRI have now become a very well- established indicator of fund performance and are beginning to underpin real estate investor strategy The importance of disclosure & brand Importantly this ESG data can provide a platform for understanding your position in the market, your exposure and can directly be used to compare against rivals. In the Investor markets, this is now widely adopted and scrutinised, the rise to prominence of sustainability benchmarks and reporting frameworks. GRESB or GRI have now become a very well-established indicator of fund performance and are beginning to underpin real estate investor strategy. The global GRESB benchmark now has over $3.7 trillion of property represented across all industry sectors and over 850 property companies and funds 2 . GRESB requires investors to submit annual in-depth sustainability data from a wide range of topics – from the traditional indicators to EPC ratings and coverage, occupier engagement and building certifications amongst others. The increased reliance on data has emphasised how important it is to have access to good quality analytics. It’s not unusual to see unreliable, ill-managed, poor quality or highly estimated data being used to inform decision making. Companies should ensure they are using trusted data only, automated where possible. It’s key that access to this data is included within your procurement arrangements. 2 GRESB (2018) Market Coverage, https:// gresb.com/about/#do PERSPECTIVES 06 LEAD STORY