Net-Zero: Where Are We Now?
The newly released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), indicates that climate action is becoming increasingly urgent to avoid the most damaging impacts of climate change. Businesses play an important role in addressing climate change by reducing what are often significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations and value chain.
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Centering Social Equity in Climate Risk Analysis and ESG Reporting
There’s much to celebrate in the advancement of climate-informed investment decisions. This is largely owing to the growth of actionable data that measures climate and environmental risk and opportunities — the “E” in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). However, there is little captured about “S,” which means that these climate-informed decisions can be made without considering social impacts.
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The Future ready business of water SECURITY: preparing for the next drought
Australia began 2020 in the grip of a brutal drought and fighting unprecedented bushfires. As communities looked to desalination as the answer for water supply problems, it began to rain and then the pandemic hit. In this article, Grant Gabriel, an Associate Water Supply Engineer with WSP, discusses the imperative for making water security a […]
Read more Why is net zero important and how is it defined?
Why is net zero important: As air quality sharply declines in the Pacific Northwest, and the Southeast faces repeated flooding from an already active hurricane season, we see glimpses of climate change exacerbating natural disasters. The globe has already warmed by about 1°C, creating moderate risk from climate change under certain forecasted scenarios. According to […]
Read more The case for healthy materials in a post-COVID world
As the world tries to recover from the ongoing global pandemic, questions are being asked as to how this can be prevented from happening again, but also how we can create healthier environments for ourselves. In the post-COVID world we are all starting to notice how our health and wellbeing is being affected by the […]
Read more Out of Pandemic, Transformational Resilience Can Emerge
WSP’s Emily Wasley and Heather Unger explain how the knowledge gained from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and resilience actions taken in response could provide lasting lessons beyond health crises preparation, including future approaches to acute and chronic risks such as climate change.
Read more The Forest and the Trees of the TCFD: Pairing Asset-Level and Strategic Resilience Assessments to Uncover Risks and Opportunities
In real estate, climate resilience is fast becoming an investment imperative. Losses in the sector due to climate-induced natural disasters are mounting and our customers are seeing financially material impacts to their portfolios. By 2070, $35 trillion in real estate assets will be at risk if the world does not change its current carbon emissions trajectory, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Read more WELL or Fitwel? Getting to Know Healthy Building Certification Systems
The green building certification movement began with a focus on environmental sustainability. Addressing core environmental issues related to energy, water, and waste was the foundation for early green building rating systems like LEED, a program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Read more Making Steps Toward Zero
2019 is the year of action, as leaders in sustainable real estate take major steps toward zero – from zero waste to zero carbon. Ambitious organizations are aiming for minimal—or even positive—impacts. The release of multiple zero carbon standards in 2018, including CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Building (ZCB) Standard, USGBC’s LEED Zero and ILFI’s Zero Carbon […]
Read more The Art of Sustainability Goal Setting
When discussing setting sustainability goals among our team, many clients simply want “the answer.” There are tools that allow you to provide key information and produce a numerical target. You could take that number and run with it. But you shouldn’t. Understand your motivation Setting sustainability goals can and should be more nuanced than that. […]
Read more Power to the people: Improving health and wellbeing with post-occupancy evaluations
As human health and wellness has become more mainstream within the real estate industry, tenants, developers, and property managers have grown more sophisticated and comprehensive in their approach for addressing it. Results from the 2018 GRESB Real Estate Assessment demonstrate how participation in the 2018 Health & Well-being module has grown significantly since its initial […]
Read more Advancing Water Risk Assessment: Moving Beyond the Standard Tools
Water is undervalued in most markets. As a line item on a balance sheet, water is hardly noticeable. But as the saying goes, you don’t miss the water until the well runs dry. As more and more regions around the world are facing water risks including scarcity, pollution, and catastrophic weather events, companies are recognizing […]
Read more Carbon Shift: Why Energy is Fading as a Key Performance Indicator
One of the benefits of early participation in the GRESB Real Estate Assessment was that it helped real estate portfolios improve their environmental, social and governance (ESG) -related policies and management systems.
Read more The need for a “true zero carbon” standard
There is a lot of focus on “net zero carbon” or “net carbon neutral” or similar in the sustainability world. This is mainly a corporate or building issue with most companies wanted to make an effort to eliminate their CO2 emissions and therefore their contribution to man-made climate change.
Read more Sustainable cities and the role of regional green building programs
In many cities, buildings are responsible for a majority of the city’s overall carbon emissions. For this reason, low-carbon buildings will be an essential component for the development of sustainable cities. Effectively reducing building emissions will require a combination of advancements in low-carbon energy systems technology and initiatives to reduce building-related energy use in both […]
Read more Three Potential Gaps in the Typical Assessment of Social and Environmental Stressors
Investors are expressing an increased interest in understanding the resilience of property and infrastructure assets and owners. The GRESB Resilience Module, launched across GRESB assessments this year, provides an exceptional vehicle for investors to evaluate the capacity of organizations to manage emerging social and environmental shocks and stressors. For many diverse, well-capitalized companies with mature […]
Read more Healthier Buildings at Scale
A key new focus area has quickly emerged in the real estate industry, one that prioritizes human health, wellness, and experience as key elements of green building design and operation. There are several reasons for this: For example, there is mounting evidence suggesting that many of our chronic public health problems are the result of […]
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