Views • 15/05/2024 • 4-min read
The productive way to manage the GRESB journey
Our Sustainability team has assisted MAPP’s clients with GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) submissions since 2020. We improve our clients’ GRESB scores across their portfolios by working with them to embed genuine best practices on real assets.
Celebrating continuous improvement
With investors placing an ever-increasing premium on sustainability, GRESB provides actionable and transparent ESG data to the financial and investment markets. The benchmark scores reflect the ESG performance of its respondents for managers and investors to guide their responsible decision-making.
GRESB aims to drive continuous improvement, so their assessments are designed to promote and reward progress. The process has evolved over the years in response to current and future issues and hot topics in sustainability. This plugged-in approach encourages conversation within businesses to actualise innovations and achieve measurable impact in the built environment.
MAPP is as proud of our 1-star GRESB client portfolios as we are of our 5-star ones. Whether clients are just starting their journeys or are maintaining 5-star national portfolios, we celebrate all these milestones. What is important is that we keep turning the dial and moving forward, continuing to lead an authentic and progressive journey backed by solid data foundations.
Overcoming occupier data challenges through tailored solutions
One of the largest challenges in GRESB is obtaining consumption data from areas under occupier control. This has been a difficult area within real estate, as occupiers may not want to or be able to share data with their landlords for several reasons.
At MAPP, we employ a multi-layered approach to:
| Smart data solutions on-site: Smart metering covers not only landlords’ managed supplies but also occupier-managed supplies. This gives the best quality of data for all stakeholders and long-term consistency, but does take a while to achieve; |
| Collecting manual data: Engaging actively and continuously with occupiers, including offering assistance, advice, and communicating the big picture, which is essential for maximising responses and unlocking opportunities for improvement later on; |
| Digital solutions off-site: We use the scraped data from the national databases as a last stage. We don’t lead with this type of data collection as it does not require occupier or building operator validation therefore discrepancies can be found. |
By prioritising collaboration alongside data collection for our clients for upstream reporting, we are helping our occupiers recognise the value of monitoring their usage downstream and encouraging them to consider ways to drive efficiency, therefore reducing their energy consumption, carbon and costs.
Making GRESB submissions meaningful
The MAPP sustainability service covers a range of areas that benefit clients and result in improvements to GRESB submissions.
We help clients by:
- Conducting GRESB gap analysis action plans between submissions.
- Undertaking policy reviews, which result in the introduction of additional solutions.
- Building and implementing net zero carbon strategies.
- Managing green building certification such as BREEAM, Fitwel, NABERS and other schemes to improve properties for occupiers.
- Implementing and tracking efficiency measures throughout the year in Asset Sustainability Action Plans, one of our core services.
- Capturing vital asset statistics through our Sustainability Baseline Survey.
We work with a variety of portfolios, from Full Repairing and Insuring lease (FRI) industrial estates to inner-city offices. Each client and portfolio is unique, so we immerse ourselves in these complexities and develop bespoke strategies. MAPP provides advice, guidance and action to ensure that best practice is embedded at the core of each fund or portfolio. Our experience has taught us that authenticity is the best way to start a GRESB journey.