GRESB is pleased to announce a significant update to the Real Estate Standard, marking a major step toward rewarding real-world performance by assessing absolute energy efficiency.
This transition to prioritize real-world outcomes aligns with the broader direction set by the GRESB Foundation in response to industry demands. It follows years of work by the Real Estate Standards Committee to develop a methodological change to enhance how energy efficiency is scored within the Real Estate Standard.
The update specifically improves the scoring logic in the Energy Like-for-Like Change section (EN1) by recognizing highly efficient assets, even when they are unable to demonstrate significant year-on-year improvements. Under the revised methodology, entities with high-performing assets will receive recognition based on their absolute energy efficiency, as an alternative to their incremental annual reductions. This ensures that low-performing assets remain incentivized to improve while high-efficiency assets are rewarded for their superior energy performance.
Alignment with ASHRAE Standard 100:2024
To support this methodology, GRESB has established energy use intensity (EUI) performance thresholds based on ASHRAE Standard 100:2024. Standard 100 is the most comprehensive, data-driven engineering standard available for this purpose today. Key aspects include:
- ASHRAE Standard 100:2024 provides benchmarks for energy efficiency in buildings, measured as energy consumption per square foot or meter per year.
- These values establish absolute performance thresholds, offering a standardized way to assess energy efficiency across different building types and locations.
- By incorporating ASHRAE EUI thresholds, GRESB ensures a consistent, industry-aligned methodology that rewards assets for meeting established efficiency standards.
- ASHRAE follows rigorous (ANSI/ISO certified) governance for all standards.
Key benefits of the update
To ensure a fair and effective assessment of energy efficiency, this update introduces several important advantages:
- The methodology adopts scientifically relevant thresholds that account for building types, location, and climate zones.
- ASHRAE-based values are globally applicable and strongly align with GRESB building types, ensuring a standardized approach for investors and managers to assess energy performance consistently across global portfolios.
- The update leverages absolute benchmarks, providing a more predictable and simplified scoring approach for members.
- Through this change, GRESB encourages participants to strive for ambitious performance thresholds, tailored to specific building characteristics that are technically feasible today.
- The methodology maintains the current data reporting requirements for 2025 to minimize additional reporting burden on participants.
Clarifications and scope:
The following key points outline the scope and limitations of this energy efficiency approach:
- This development does not supersede the current Energy Like-for-Like Change scoring approach of the Standard. Rather, it caters for either scenario: Energy Like-for-Like Change or energy efficiency. The scoring method which achieves the higher score applies to the entity.
- This methodological update is focused exclusively on energy efficiency, which is a foundational step towards achieving industry’s decarbonization. However, it does not extend to other themes such as net-zero alignment or transition risk, which are addressed through dedicated efforts by the GRESB Foundation.
- While the updated methodology caters for the vast majority of the GRESB dataset, approximately ~3.8% of assets currently fall outside the scope of the established thresholds. These cases will be subject to further refinement throughout 2025 and 2026.
Next steps:
To ensure transparency and accessibility, GRESB will include additional technical details in the forthcoming 2025 Real Estate Scoring Document and aims to make ASHRAE EUI values available to participants through the GRESB Portal.
Throughout 2025, GRESB will actively engage with industry stakeholders to collect feedback on the updated methodology and explore opportunities for further integration into the Real Estate Standard.
GRESB remains committed to evolving the Real Estate Standard in a way that balances ambition with practicality, ensuring it continues to serve as a robust and meaningful benchmark for the real estate sector.
We look forward to collaborating with industry stakeholders to drive impactful and measurable progress in operational energy efficiency.