GRESB lancia il Survey annuale sulla sostenibilità

(GRESB Launches 2013 Survey on sustainability performance in Real Estate Sector )
The Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), which measures the sustainability performance of the global real estate investment industry, today announced that its 2013 Survey is open for responses. In 2012 the data gathered by GRESB covered more than 450 companies and funds.  This information is used by some of the industry’s largest institutional investors, investment managers and property companies to analyze their sustainability practices.
Each year, in cooperation with its membership, GRESB undertakes an annual survey focused on the sustainability performance of real estate investments, measured at the portfolio level. The approximately 50 questions that comprise the Survey are based on input from investors about what matters to them when examining sustainability issues. The purpose of the Survey is to evaluate real estate companies and funds’ performance and to inform investors of the success and progress of initiatives to improve their sustainability. GRESB’s global membership includes more than 40 institutional real estate investors and investment managers, plus all major real estate industry associations and a large number of consultants and product vendors.
This is the fourth year that GRESB has undertaken its Survey. Over that time, the response to the Survey has increased substantially, from 200 companies and funds in 2009, to more than 450 in 2012. GRESB covers seven unique sustainability aspects, which address not only environmental issues but also approaches to management, policy and disclosure, building certifications, sustainability risk management and stakeholder engagement.
Nils Kok, GRESB founder and Executive Director said, “GRESB is fully engaged with the real estate investment community. Our investor members have made clear that they see sustainability as being about more than environmental factors. They consider the whole spectrum and the result is that the 2013 GRESB Survey is, as in previous years, a comprehensive analysis of sustainability issues.”
Participants complete the Survey online via GRESB’s online portal, which remains open from 1 April until 1 July 2013. GRESB will then spend the summer analysing all the data received. The 2013 Survey results will be published in the first week of September. In addition to the publicly available annual GRESB Report, GRESB Members and Survey participants receive individual results that detail their respective funds’ and firms’ performance.
“The past few years have been a challenging environment for the real estate sector. However, at the heart of GRESB’s philosophy is the alignment of sustainability measures with financial performance. Our aim is to create a tool that can be used globally by investors and managers of real estate investments both to lower operating costs but also to better manage their investments and portfolios in the face of higher and more volatile energy prices, stricter legislation to combat climate change and require increased energy efficiency and the changing preferences of corporate tenants” said Sander Paul van Tongeren, Senior Sustainability Specialist at APG Asset Management, which is one of the organizations that co-founded the GRESB in 2009.
GRESB is an industry-driven organization committed to rigorous and independent evaluation of the sustainability performance of real estate portfolios. GRESB works in tandem with institutional investors and their portfolio managers to identify and implement sustainability best practices in order to enhance and protect shareholder value.
Source: Company