What’s new in December
As 2022 comes to a close and we turn our attention to preparing for a productive 2023, we would like to take this opportunity to wish GRESB members, participants, and the wider real assets community a prosperous new year.
This past year marked many important milestones for the GRESB community, including:
- The GRESB Benchmarks grew significantly in 2022, and average scores increased across the board for both real estate and infrastructure.
- We launched three new resources that can help you on your sustainability journey: The SFDR Reporting Solution, the Transition Risk Report, and the TCFD Alignment Report.
- This year also marked significant technical improvements to the GRESB Portal to ensure a smoother Portal experience for our members, partners, and participants.
- The GRESB Foundation established a new Standards Development Process to evolve the GRESB Standards going forward and published the changes to the 2023 Standards in October.
We hope you are using this time in December to reflect on what you have accomplished and to set yourself up for success for 2023 by making any preparations that you can early, such as starting the contract renewal process before the end of the year to take advantage of discounted pricing now.
GRESB acquires Asset Resolution
Earlier this month, GRESB announced the acquisition of Asset Resolution, an asset-based climate data and analytics provider for financial institutions.
The acquisition will expand and enrich GRESB’s asset-level data coverage across hard-to-abate sectors, strengthening its assessments and tools while providing GRESB members with more actionable insights and support with asset-driven analysis.
Foundation update
GRESB Foundation end of year meetings
The GRESB Foundation Board and the GRESB BV Supervisory Board held their first annual consultation meeting on November 29, 2022, in accordance with the service-level agreement between GRESB BV and the GRESB Foundation. These meetings discuss the collaboration between both parties in meeting their respective and mutual responsibilities. Agenda points included outcomes of the GRESB Foundation annual self-evaluation process, highlights from the 2022 GRESB results, as well as the 2023 plan for the GRESB Foundation and GRESB BV. The GRESB Foundation Standards Committees (SCs) also met in early December to discuss the 2023 priorities and plan, including engagement opportunities with stakeholders. The Foundation secretariat is currently working on adjusting the 2023 plan based on the feedback received from the SCs so that it can be shared with GRESB stakeholders in the new year.
GRESB Foundation and the CRREM V2 pathways
The CRREM decarbonization pathways are being updated and CRREM recently held a public consultation period to collect feedback. In response to high interest from the Foundation members and GRESB stakeholders on the real estate side, the GRESB Foundation facilitated an information session where CRREM’s managing director, Prof. Dr. Sven Bienert, presented the updated CRREM decarbonization pathways to the GRESB Foundation Board and Real Estate Standards Committee members, who then had the opportunity to provide direct feedback and ask questions. The updated CRREM pathways are expected to be released early next year and GRESB intends to update the Real Estate Benchmark Reports using the updated pathways in Q1 2023.
Foundation profiles
Our monthly series of Foundation Board Member Profiles aims to give GRESB members and partners insights into the priorities and work of the Foundation and to get to know each Board Member. The profiles provide insights into each member’s motivation for joining the Board, the future of ESG, and how his or her organization approaches responsible investing. Read this month’s Board Member profiles below:
2022 events in review
This year GRESB hosted a record number of events to equip the real assets community with the timely insights they need to achieve their sustainability goals.
View our 2022 Events in Review page for a snapshot of the events we hosted in 2022, the topics and geographies we covered, links to event recordings, a list of our event partners, and much more.
The year may be almost over, but our events are not! See a list of our upcoming 2023 events and industry events here.
GRESB case studies
Earlier this year, we started a series of case studies that explore the many ways our community uses GRESB, initially looking at how our investor members and managers engage with our data and integrate GRESB into their investment processes and decision-making.
In addition, we recently launched a series of interviews focused on the ESG journey of first-year GRESB participants, exploring their motivation for participating in the GRESB Assessments, the benefits and challenges of participation, and the importance of getting started.
We hope that the resulting insights can help current and prospective members gain a greater understanding of the broad value found in ESG data and the role that the GRESB assessments can play in supporting organizational goals.
GRESB Insights
Through GRESB Insights, we seek to highlight case studies on ESG integration in real assets, data-driven analyses into how the industry is responding to sustainability challenges, and educational articles exploring topics covered in the GRESB Assessments.
The theme this month was “Reflections on 2022.” Below are the latest GRESB Insights:
GRESB 2022 results and CRREM pathways: a call to action | EVORA Global Limited
Next month’s topic is “The Future of ESG.” Submission guidelines can be found here. We will be releasing our 2023 GRESB editorial calendar in January.
Upcoming industry events
ESG and Data Management in Real Estate | January 19-20, 2023 | Amsterdam, Netherlands
Charles Van Thiel, Director of Real Estate at GRESB, will be speaking at the conference, which will cover a range of topics from a strategic point of view all the way down to technical implementation.
Verco webinar: Embodied carbon within real estate | January 19, 2023 | Online
During this webinar, Verco’s reporting team will be sharing insights they have gained through their work with leading real estate businesses to help you better understand and assess embodied carbon.
The Green Real Estate | February 9, 2023 | Bangkok, Thailand
Trey Archer, Business Development Director Asia at GRESB, will lead a timely discussion on the topic of: “A Sustainable Future: The importance of ESG compliance in the race to net zero.”
See our events calendar for a full overview of upcoming events.
Careers at GRESB
GRESB is growing and looking for new people! Please feel free to share with your network.
Our most recently added open positions:
- Project Leader – Private Equity | Amsterdam
- Infrastructure Associate, ESG | Amsterdam
- Junior/Intermediate Data Scientist/Engineer | Amsterdam
- Sustainability (ESG) Associate, Real Estate | Amsterdam
- Infrastructure Associate ESG | Amsterdam
- Sales Director Americas – Infrastructure (Sustainability) | New York
- Member (Customer) Success Manager | Amsterdam
- Senior Data Scientist/Engineer | Amsterdam
- Senior Software Engineer | Amsterdam
- Marketing, Communications & Events Internship (Sustainability) | Amsterdam
What GRESB is reading
2022 ESG report | PERE
IPCC explainer: Stopping climate change | Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit
ESG: Six things building professionals need to know | BuildingGreen