by Brianna Crandall — March 30, 2015—BRE, U.K.-based building research organization responsible for the BREEAM green building certification program, has announced its partnership with GRESB, a global sustainability benchmark for real estate portfolios.
Collaboration between the two global organizations is intended to promote their shared goals of advancing transparency and sustainability performance in the real estate industry. The partnership is also expected to help improve connections between asset- and portfolio-level assessments, streamlining the flow of relevant, actionable information.
BRE’s BREEAM family of certification programs is used in more than 60 countries, with several country-specific BREEAM schemes operated across Europe. BREEAM encourages integrative design, construction, and operation that promotes low-carbon, low-environmental-impact buildings and communities. As a partner of GRESB, BRE will also serve on the GRESB Benchmark Committee, providing strategic, commercial and technical input regarding the GRESB assessment process and related products and services.
“BREEAM is a globally recognized sustainability standard for buildings which provides proven economic, environmental and social benefits to property owners and occupiers. It currently provides a valuable route to achieving credits under the GRESB benchmark, and our hope is to extend its reach under the partnership so more clients can realize the benefits on new and existing properties. Our collaboration demonstrates that GRESB recognizes all green building standards and schemes that have credibility and rigor behind them. We look forward to a fruitful relationship,” said Gavin Dunn, Director of BREEAM.
GRESB assesses environmental, social, and governance attributes and performance of property funds around the world. In 2014, GRESB covered 637 funds representing $2.1 trillion in property value. The GRESB benchmark addresses issues including corporate sustainability strategy, policies and objectives, environmental performance monitoring, and the use of high-quality voluntary rating schemes such as BREEAM. Close to 25 percent of GRESB participants have one or more BREEAM-certified assets in their portfolio.
“Commercial real estate investors are increasingly demanding information on their assets and portfolios to better understand immediate sustainability risks such as flooding and exposure to energy efficiency regulation, but also to allocate capital to sustainability-related investment opportunities, such as the repositioning of inefficient assets that might otherwise become obsolete. Our partnership with BRE helps both organizations to further deliver on the joint mission to advance sustainability in the built environment to enhance and protect shareholder value,” said Nils Kok, CEO and co-founder of GRESB.
