About
GRESB was established in 2009, and was originally an acronym for Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark. In 2016, GRESB was expanded to also include infrastructure, and GRESB was established as the business name.
GRESB has two categories of memberships: Participant members who report data each year on a regular cycle and investor members. The reported data is validated by a third party and then used to generate ESG benchmarks for the following industries: (i) Real estate benchmark, (ii) real estate development benchmark, (iii) infrastructure fund benchmark and (iv) infrastructure asset benchmark. The investor members have access to the data generated by GRESB. Hence, GRESB is intended to facilitate information flows between owners and investors.
Aggregated benchmark data is also published each year to show the state of ESG in the aforementioned industries.
Participant reporting is carried out each spring, with publication of the findings each autumn. Each participant is both awarded a score in the form of a percentage (with 100% as the maximum) and a ranking indicating its performance relative to its peers. In addition, a Green Star is awarded for attaining a certain score on the various assessment components. Participants also receive supplementary information, including individual parameter scores, scope for improvement and historical developments.
In addition to the ESG reports, GRESB also provides investor members with analysis tools for assessing current and potential investments, and for comparing investments across portfolios.
The GRESB 2024 real estate benchmark comprised ESG data for more than 2,200 property companies, and encompassed more than 200,000 assets across 80 countries. Several Norwegian properties and companies are included. The data are used by institutional and financial investors, including pension funds and insurance companies. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global’s guidance for its investments partners and asset managers expects the real estate assessment of the GRESB to be completed on an annual basis.
Who does it impact?
GRESB members
Status: Launched
Established in 2009
Relation to other initiatives and regulations
The assessments are intended to reflect recognised sustainability performance parameters and are, inter alia, in conformity with the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. GRESB has also initiated cooperation on reporting and assessment under the EU Taxonomy, the SFDR and the CSRD, and has embarked on a process to clarify which indicators are currently concurrent with GRESB.
Thommessen's comments
In our assessment, GRESB is a useful and credible source of ESG information for property companies, and a helpful basis for assessing and comparing potential and existing investments.
Because GRESB is intended to serve as an international sustainability benchmark, the ESG assessment is based on, and adapted for, a number of international reporting and assessment frameworks. This means that GRESB reporting is very extensive, with specific instructions for gathering key figures. This will probably have an effect on how many property companies consider GRESB reporting relevant. However, we do believe that the increased transparency and expanded ESG reporting trend will continue, and that thorough and credible tools like this will thus remain important.