2025 GRESB Real Estate & Infrastructure Standards updates

GRESB is pleased to announce the release of the 2025 GRESB Standards updates.

These updates to the GRESB Real Estate and Infrastructure Standards are driven by the GRESB Foundation, maintaining the direction of travel established by the Foundation Board while reflecting the Foundation’s commitment to the evolving needs of the industry and lessons learned from 2024.

Updates to the 2025 GRESB Real Estate Standard provide transparency about development plans through 2027 and reflect a commitment to stability and a predictable multi-year development process.

These changes introduce new and enhanced criteria for embodied carbon, renewable energy, biodiversity, and building certifications, and also address sector-specific considerations for residential real estate. Updates are categorized by:

Targeted improvement:

• Energy Efficiency: scored recognition for high performers regardless of year-over-year improvement

Predictable change:

• Renewable Energy: unscored data collection to inform future renewable energy scoring
• Building Certifications: unscored data collection to differentiate ratings based on scope, prerequisites, and other factors
• Embodied Carbon: unscored test of new criteria
• Biodiversity: unscored test of new criteria

Streamlined reporting and reduced burden:

• Employee Safety: updated scoring
• Personnel Responsible for ESG: indicator retired
• Employee Engagement: indicator retired

Increased sector specificity:

• Residential: supplemental recognition for residential participants based on sector-specific indicators, metrics, and weights

Read the full list of Real Estate Standard updates here.

The Infrastructure Fund, Asset, and Development Asset Standards updates include:

• Asset: New and enhanced criteria for net zero target setting to show performance against an entity’s own ambitions; increased data comparability and quality through changes to Scope 2 and 3 emissions reporting and the introduction of data coverage reporting for key performance metrics; verification and assurance requirements for larger assets for GHG emissions data; indicators and metrics that are no longer relevant have been retired to reduce reporting burden.
• Fund: Improved rules for asset-to-fund aggregation to ensure assets using the Grace Period do not impact fund scores or data; new funds can now report without score penalty for partial coverage in their first or second reporting year; indicators and metrics that are no longer relevant have been retired to reduce reporting burden.
• Development Asset: Indicators and metrics that are no longer relevant have been retired to reduce reporting burden.

Read the full lists of updates below:

• Infrastructure Asset Standard updates
• Infrastructure Fund Standard updates
• Infrastructure Development Asset Standard updates