GRESB Quarterly, Oceania | Q4 2024

Welcome to our final Oceania newsletter of 2024. It feels like just yesterday we were sending out our first Oceania newsletter in December 2023 (time flies when you’re having fun — or, you know, working hard). We hope you’ve enjoyed our regional content and are now fully in the holiday spirit.

It’s with mixed feelings that I take over as Head of APAC after almost five years in the GRESB Amsterdam office. Whilst I’m very excited to join the region and the team, we will all miss the outgoing Ruben Langbroek and the experience, enthusiasm, and entertainment he brought us over the last 12 years. For me, this role means I get to return Down Under, just in time for cricket season, and finally get that vitamin D that I’ve been missing for the past 5 years.

2024 has had its challenges, there’s no denying that, but we look forward to a brighter new year with improved standards across both Real Estate and Infrastructure that will challenge the membership and move our industry forward — plus, the chance to fix all the things we didn’t quite get right this year. Keep an eye on your inbox as we release further 2025 guidance in the form of the Reference Guides, and Q1 webinars getting into the details of the standards changes.

Finally, I want to welcome the new additions to the APAC team, all based in Asia:

• Amarone Kim, Chief Representative Korea
• Padmanabh (Pady) Subramanian, Country Manager – Business Development, India
• Rohen Chelliah, Business Development Manager, Infrastructure – APAC (based in Malaysia)

They bring a huge amount of experience to the team.

Wishing you a relaxing and happy holiday season, where you have at least one moment without anyone asking you to explain what the latest sustainability acronym means…

See you in 2025!

Steve Pringle

Head of APAC

Before we wrap up the year, we have a gift for you: This quarter, we released the 2025 Standards changes for both Real Estate and Infrastructure. In advance of the updates to the Standards and Reference Guides in the new year, we encourage you to review the changes:

• Real Estate: GRESB Real Estate Standard 2025 Updates and 2025 Updates Summary Table
• Infrastructure Fund: GRESB Infrastructure Fund Standard 2025 Updates and 2025 Updates Summary Table
• Infrastructure Asset: GRESB Infrastructure Asset Standard 2025 Updates and 2025 Updates Summary Table
• Infrastructure Development Asset: GRESB Infrastructure Development Asset Standard 2025 Updates and 2025 Updates Summary Table

In addition, we have recently released the revised criteria for building certification schemes. Thank you to our Oceania-based members who provided their feedback to the public consultation process.

Participant services currently available to support your 2025 prep include:

• QuickStart: Like Santa’s little helper, the new GRESB QuickStart service has been designed to help new participants familiarise themselves with GRESB quickly so they can better navigate the assessment process. At its core, the service focuses on one-to-one engagement with GRESB’s Member Success team to cover all they need to know for a seamless reporting period.
  Available January – May 2025 (subject to availability – our elves are in high demand)

• Results Consultations: A Results Consultation provides an in-depth understanding of your GRESB Assessment results, including detailed insight into the validation process and the allocation of points for individual indicators.
  Available through January 2025 (subject to availability, and not being on the naughty list)

We also encourage you to provide your feedback on your 2024 Assessment experience through our Participant Member Surveys. Your feedback is vitally important to help us improve our service – the surveys will be open through Q1 2025:

• Real Estate
• Infrastructure Fund
• Infrastructure Asset (including Development Asset)

Our workshop has been busy this year, making your sustainability journey as easy as unwrapping a present. A reminder of the products that we’ve launched during 2024:

• REAL Solutions is GRESB’s dynamic suite of tools designed to navigate the sustainability, resilience, and efficiency of real assets. REAL Benchmarks, the first tool from the REAL Solutions family, was launched in April.
  We will soon be launching v.2, which includes the Score Contribution module, and it’s set to be as good as a Home Alone sequel. Here’s a sneak peek.
  Further information, contact us for a demo.
• The GRESB Accredited Professional (AP) Program is now available to everyone. Looking to impress at your holiday party? GRESB AP offers individuals the opportunity to deepen their understanding, reporting, and management of sustainability data and performance within the GRESB Real Estate Assessment.
  We will soon be launching AP for Infrastructure.
  Learn more and contact us to discuss pricing for multiple exams.

GRESB

We’re already making plans for 2025, and we think you’ll like what’s coming.

Our Chief Innovation Officer, Chris Pyke, will once again be in Sydney for GBCA’s TRANSFORM in March (yay, visitors!) – and we plan to give him no time for jetlag in his schedule.

• Already available: Expression of interest form for our 2025 Investor Masterclass.
  March | Investor Members only | EOI
• Watch this space for events for our Participant Members while Chris is in town, including GRESB Foundation Roundtables.

In addition, Steve and Sarah will be in Melbourne and Aotearoa New Zealand the week of 7 April. Further information to come.

APAC Road Ahead

We heard the need for more support, better training, clearer communication, and more proactive engagement from GRESB to better anticipate the evolution of the GRESB Standards in the future.

We held our APAC version of The Road Ahead: GRESB’s Commitment for the Future webinar on 5 December.

It is now available to watch on demand. You can review answers to the questions asked during the Q&A session here.

Plan your 2025 event schedule with events from our Partners.

GBCA TRANSFORM

TRANSFORM is the industry leading event featuring experts and decision makers within sustainability and the built environment. Chris Pyke will be speaking on The evolution of sustainable finance and Scope 3 reporting panel.

19-20 March 2025 | Sydney | Register now

ACSI Conference

Established in 2001, ACSI exists to provide a strong voice on financially material environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.

2 April 2025 | Melbourne | Register now

RIAA Australia Conference

The RIAA Conference Australia is a must-attend event for finance, sustainability, and industry practitioners to delve into the pressing issues that define the responsible investment landscape today.

28-29 May 2025 | Sydney | Register now [Super Early Bird rate until 23 December]

Sustainable value roundtable 

Back in October, we invited experts to a roundtable discussion on the link between sustainability and property valuations.

We discussed:

• The integration of ESG factors into the International Valuation Standards
• The need for better data collection and reporting mechanisms to appropriately incorporate significant ESG factors
• The integration of ESG into broader discussions about quality, so it’s harder to isolate ESG factors from quality
• The increasing trend amongst institutional investors and tenants to demand climate-positive assets

Sarah’s latest article for IREI will focus on these learnings, watch this space for its release in the next month.

2024 Regional Insights Series

Thank you to the more than 200 people who joined us for our two Regional Insights events for infrastructure and real estate in Sydney. We sleighed the 15-year anniversary of GRESB with you and recognised Oceania’s ESG leadership. A fantastic lineup of speakers shared their valuable insights and expertise.

Infrastructure Insights

At the infrastructure event, co-hosted by Dexus, we discussed:

• Recycling versus true circularity: how do you look to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th life of your products and materials?
• The importance of capturing data now to support decision-making in 30-40 years, when your asset comes to the end of its life
• Nature as a key strategic lever to achieve climate plans: TNFD is a well-thought-through global framework, but is not gospel. It’s a good place to start to assess your risk exposure: “It’s about exposure not disclosure”
• The role of education: if colleagues understand that everything they do has an impact, they can take learnings from one project to the next and create real change

Real Estate Insights

At the real estate event, co-hosted by Cushman & Wakefield, we learned:

• Ethically weighted returns: focusing on impact doesn’t mean giving up on strong returns
• There is no one-size-fits-all framework for social value, but if you focus on quality and inclusion, you will get the right outcomes (but whatever you do, don’t talk about “lives touched”!)
• Moving the dial on social value: even a little investment from Super Funds could move the dial significantly, and make sure you’re not rolling out initiatives to communities without knowing their true value
• Sustainability matters: managers might be happy to sit on assets with poor sustainability performance, “but woe betide you try to sell it”

IREI: Looking back, moving on

In Ruben’s final article for IREI, he reflects on 15 years of ESG progress in the Asia Pacific real estate sector. From just 25 APAC participants in 2009 to over 500 today, the region has made significant strides in transparency and ESG performance.

Read here

ANREV & GRESB: The Influence of ESG on Asia Pacific Real Estate Fund Performance

Presented by ANREV’s Amelie Delaunay at our Asia Forum in Singapore, this new report delivers an in-depth look at how ESG integration impacts non-listed real estate fund performance in the Asia-Pacific region.

Learn more

RIAA: Responsible Investment Benchmark Report 2024

RIAA’s annual Responsible Investment Benchmark Report charts the size, growth, depth and performance of the Australian and New Zealand responsible investment markets over 12 months and compares these results with the broader financial market.

Read more

IGCC: Just Transition Report and Activating Private Investment in Adaptation

• Just Transition: The shift to net zero should benefit companies, workers, and their wider communities. This new comprehensive guide synthesises existing Just Transition frameworks. It offers investors practical tools and insights to evaluate and engage on company transition strategies.
  Read here
• Activating Private Investment in Adaptation: This paper shows what governments and investors can do to prevent capital flight from high physical risk areas and industries, instead enabling investment in adaptation and resilience from the asset level up to the whole-of-system level.
  Learn more

GRESB’s podcast series The Pulse 

GRESB’s podcast series continued this quarter with the following new shows available to stream:

• Starting at the bottom: The GRESB origin story
• GRESB Results Consultation: Turning data into ESG excellence
• The GRESB Standards part 1: How they evolve and what’s in store for 2025
• The GRESB Standards part 2: How they evolve and what’s in store for 2025

Access all episodes here.