“Buildings account for approximately a third of the world’s energy consumption and global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As physical, regulatory and reputational ESG risks are being increasingly felt, real estate professionals, as the building owners and operators, are in a unique position to proactively address those risks. By doing so, they are not only mitigating risk, but also safeguarding and increasing the value of their assets in the long term.”
Tatiana Bosteels
Director Responsibility and Head of Responsible Property Investment, Hermes Real Estate
UNEP FI’s work on property investing is undertaken by the Property Working Group (PWG).
Aim of the Property Working Group
- Drive innovation in Responsible Property Investment (RPI) by facilitating access to relevant information and best practice and collaboratively develop the necessary tools to enable property investors and professionals to systematically apply and integrate ESG criteria into investment and lending decisions.
- Promote and encourage RPI by collecting and providing evidence to show how it can protect or increase financial performance throughout the lifecycle of buildings while simultaneously reducing detrimental environmental and social impacts.
- Collaborate with policy-makers and the real estate investment community on developing and establishing the appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks for RPI practices to grow.
Activities
The PWG’s objective is to address the most imminent challenges in the field of sustainable real estate investment through the following activities:
- Capacity building and dissemination of tools: Engage real estate investors on the Sustainable Real Estate Investment Framework through a series of events globally.
- Managing physical and transition risks of climate change: working on developing guidelines towards a first set of climate-related property investor disclosures in alignment with the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
- Policy engagement: In collaboration with the Global Alliance on Buildings and Construction identify investment gaps in countries’ NDCs with regards a sustainable built environment and work on a roadmap for countries to finance their sustainable building commitments.
- Energy Efficiency: Further promote enabling policies for energy efficiency investment through participation in the Secretariat of the G20 Energy Efficiency Finance Task Group.
- Positive impact finance: Provide an open space through the Positive Impact Incubator in which banks, investors, clients and further stakeholders can come together to look at ways to open markets in relation to specific needs and impacts on the build environment. With several collaborating organisations, the PWG has issued an impact-based Real Estate Investment Framework.
Members of the Property Working Group
- Allianz Real Estate (Allianz SE), Germany
- Aviva Investors (Aviva plc), UK
- Axa Real Estate Managers (Axa – Group Management Services), France
- Bentall Kennedy, USA & Canada
- BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Services (BNP Paribas Fortis), France
- Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, France
- City Development Limited, Singapore
- Citibank, USA
- Colonial First State Global Asset Management (Commonwealth Bank of Australia), Australia
- Deutsche Bank, Germany & USA
- F&C REIT Asset Management, UK
- Hermes Investment Management, UK
- Inflection Point Capital Management (UK) Co., Ltd
- Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, India
- Investa Property Group, Australia
- Japan Real Estate Asset Management Co, Ltd, Japan
- La Française Group, France
- LaSalle Investment Management, USA
- Le Groupe QUARTUS, France
- Lend Lease, Australia
- M&G Real Estate, UK
- Mitsubishi Corp.-UBS Realty Inc., Japan
- Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corporation, Japan
- Nomura Real Estate Asset Management, Japan
- RobecoSAM, Switzerland
- The Link REIT, Hong Kong
- Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Limited
- Thomas Lloyd, UK
- Trillium Asset Management, UK & USA
- UBS Global Real Estate (UBS AG), Switzerland
Chairs
- Tatiana Bosteels, Director – RPI & Sustainability, Hermes Investment Management (2014-2018)
- Anna Murray, Vice President, Sustainability, Bentall Kennedy (2018-2020)
Advisory Group
- Maria Atkinson, Director, XO
- Michael Brooks, CEO of the Real Property Association of Canada (Canada)
- Ryuichi Horie, Co-founder and CEO, CSR Design Green Investment Advisory (Japan)
- David Lorenz, Professor for Property Valuation and Sustainability, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
- Gary Pivo, Professor of Urban Planning and Professor of Natural Resources, The University of Arizona
- Sarah Sayce, Professor of Sustainable Real Estate, Royal Agricultural University
Collaboration
One of the key elements for the development of our work on property investment is the active collaboration with market players with an expertise and deep interest in real estate investments.