Six Steps to a Winning GRESB Audit

National Real Estate Investor offers six strategies to prepare for the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), a program that rates real estate portfolios for sustainability performance.

The suggestions are:

• Focus on reporting “stakeholder engagement” and “performance indicators.”
• Utilize the easiest sources to get data.
• Take a realistic view of the organization’s sustainability policies.
• Create a central data collection system.
• Designate a “GRESB czar."
• Create a smart sustainability policy and sell it to the organization.

The story says that the highest GRESB award winners – Green Stars – have portfolio-wide policies in place. The point isn’t to have the most sustainable buildings. It is to show improvement from year to year.

Top 1000 Funds reports that a sustainable benchmark that can be used by institutional investors interested in infrastructure is being developed. Initial investors, including CalPERS, APG, ATP, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and PGGM did a pilot assessment of environmental, social and governance (ESG) benchmarks within their infrastructure investments. They now are calling in GRESB to formalize the benchmarks and ensure a standardized approach.