The 2014 GRESB Survey results show Pacific still clear global leaders on sustainable investment while Asia is only just behind Europe in third place
Singapore, 4th September, 2014 – The findings of the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (‘GRESB’) 2014 survey, released at an Asia Pacific sustainable property investment symposium organized by CBRE in Singapore today, noted that real estate investors and developers in Asia are making significant progress in integrating sustainability into the management and operations of their portfolios. The overall GRESB score for GRESB’s Asia participants increased by 23 per cent to 46 per cent, nudging past North America for the first time (with an overall score of 44 per cent). Pacific still leads the world with an overall GRESB score of 61, with 65 per cent of total participants being ranked as “Green Stars”, compared with 35 per cent of participants in Asia.
This year’s GRESB Asia response rate increased by 24 per cent with a total of 92 participants, mostly in Japan (31), China (21), and Singapore (13). Asia performed quite strongly in the area of Monitoring and Environmental Management Systems but, along with Pacific, still lag behind the North America and Europe in the area of green building certification.
Tim Shen, CBRE’s Head of Sustainability in Asia said “It is very encouraging that there was a significant increase in the measurement and performance aspects of the Asian funds from last year. It shows that this sustainability is not a fad in real estate but a strategic issue with long-term implications. The key areas of opportunity will be around greening of existing buildings, improved stakeholder engagement, particularly landlords working with tenants to mitigate the negative environmental and social impacts. CBRE expects increased participation from Asian companies in next year’s survey”.
A panel of international experts from CapitaLand, UBS, M&G Real Estate, the Singapore Building Construction Authority, and CBRE, discussed various aspects of sustainable real estate that are promoted by GRESB. The panel discussed the future of green leases taking off in Asia. Light green leases with no penalties involved will become increasingly common but based on the experiences in Europe and Australia, legislation will be required to drive deep green leases. Light green clauses are not legally binding and are usually limited to improved energy efficiency, encouraging the tenant to maintain the energy performance of the building. Dark green clauses are usually legally binding and require a commitment by the tenant to uphold agreed environmental targets such as energy or waste targets.
Another area of opportunity identified was the green certification of existing buildings through the improvement of operation and maintenance aspects rather than more expensive system upgrades and building retrofits. This is an area in which CBRE is seeing increasing interest from building owners across Asia where it is being engaged to advise clients on LEED certification for existing buildings.
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