Paving The Road Ahead: Outlining the Strategic Direction of the GRESB Assessment
Published on 20 April 2021
Our shared future success depends on our ability to drive more sustainable outcomes across more assets faster, and to do this at a global level.
Our new organizational structure is ready for this challenge. We have the right people in GRESB BVs Management Board, while the establishment of the GRESB Foundation is now well underway. Together with your expertise and dedication, we’re ready to accelerate the transition to sustainable real assets.
Our first step is developing a GRESB Roadmap. This Roadmap will outline the future and ongoing strategic direction of the Assessments. GRESB is a global benchmark, so it needs to cater to the needs of many diverse and global stakeholders. The variety is vast – from new members just getting started with ESG, to long-time members developing and refining global best practices. It needs to show the way to participants, respond to capital market advances, and meet the evolving needs of investors.
Our shared future success depends on our ability to drive more sustainable outcomes across more assets faster, and to do this at a global level.
The first phase of GRESB set a common ESG language, created a common reporting platform, and developed trust in its results. The focus was on evaluating ESG management practices and ESG performance efforts. The Assessments recognized any actions and efforts made by real asset managers to generate better ESG results.
But, sustainability disclosures and transparency on ESG practices are no longer a proxy for substantive, material sustainability performance. Measuring performance will ensure that the real asset industry will be sustainable and resilient into the future.
Thus, the Roadmap will serve to highlight how we plan to transform GRESB to measure ESG performance outcomes. The Roadmap is strategic, and will be relevant to the real estate and infrastructure sectors.
While the new GRESB Foundation governance is being finalised, we can’t sit still. Which is why we will be relying on our the GRESB Real Estate and Infrastructure governance groups to develop this Roadmap.
GRESB must enable fair scoring, benchmarking, and comparison among all members. Our Roadmap is the first step to ensure it continues to do so for years to come.
We expect to release our Roadmap by the end of 2021. After its release, we will engage with our stakeholders on technical and topic-specific aspects as we develop the Assessment.
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