BlackRock Joins Better Buildings Partnership

(Credit: Better Buildings Partnership)

Through its dedicated real estate investment group with over $28 billion in assets under management (AUM), BlackRock is among the latest notable companies to join the Better Buildings Partnership (BPP).

The Better Buildings Partnership, a collaboration of the UK's leading commercial property owners working together to improve the sustainability of existing commercial building stock, has three main objectives:

1. Supporting members and the industry to deliver excellent operational building performance. 
2. Mainstreaming sustainability skills and providing guidance for non-sustainability professionals.
3. Enabling investors and occupiers to understand and act upon sustainability to drive change.

Earlier this year BPP launched its Responsible Property Management Toolkit , which provides practical guidance for asset managers, property managers and facilities managers on embedding sustainability within property management services. Developed in collaboration with major commercial real estate players such as CBRE and JLL, the Toolkit addresses 13 different sustainability topics that cover eco-efficiency management, transportation, social value, and health and wellbeing.  

BlackRock has made sustainability its standard for investing and has put ESG integration at the center of its investment processes and asset management activities. Examples of recent initiatives include its public commitment to support the goal to be net zero carbon by 2050 or sooner, and its ongoing contribution to leading sustainability benchmarks and reporting standards.

BlackRock’s key sustainability actions for 2021 include, but are not limited to:

• Publishing the proportion of its assets under management that are currently aligned to net zero, and announcing an interim target on the proportion of its assets under management that will be aligned to net zero in 2030, for markets with sufficiently reliable data.
• Incorporating the impacts of climate change into its capital market assumptions, the cornerstone for portfolio construction at BlackRock.
• Helping clients benefit from opportunities created by the energy transition, from investments in electric cars to clean energy to energy-efficient housing.
• Launching investment products with explicit temperature alignment goals, including products aligned to a net zero pathway.
• Using investment stewardship to ensure the companies its clients invest in are mitigating climate risk and considering the opportunities presented by the net zero transition.
• Asking companies to disclose a business plan aligned with the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2ºC, consistent with achieving net zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Sarah Ratcliffe, CEO, Better Buildings Partnership said: “We are very happy to welcome (BlackRock) to the BBP. Our growing membership demonstrates the increasing strategic significance that property owners are placing on ESG and sustainability issues and the urgent need to collaborate and drive collective action.”