COVID-19 hasn’t diminished ESG momentum contend administrators of the GRESB global benchmark for environmental, social and governance performance of commercial real estate portfolios and infrastructure assets. With the deadline for 2020 data submission recently passed, participation in this year’s assessment climbed by 18 per cent over 2019 and now represents more than USD $5.3 trillion worth of assets under management. Results will be released later this fall.

“With accelerating sustainability risks, accessing standardized and reliable ESG data and benchmarks has never been more important to investors,” observes GRESB co-founder and managing director, Sander Paul van Tongeren.

That’s reflected in a 69 per cent increase in GRESB respondents choosing to opt into the pilot resilience module, now in the final year of a three-year trial period before key indicators are selected to be incorporated into required reporting in 2021. A total of 543 entities, including private real estate companies, REITs, property funds, developers and infrastructure assets and funds, completed the supplementary assessment, which aligns with Task Force of Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TFCD) indicators.

This year’s real estate assessment will scrutinize data for more than 96,000 assets located in 64 countries, collected from 957 private companies and funds and 272 publicly traded companies and REITs. That includes 79 of the top 100 global real estate investment managers as determined by IPE Real Assets, and 61 per cent of the coverage of major listed company indices.

This year’s two-track infrastructure assessment encompasses 118 funds and 426 assets. Those assets are located in 40 countries, represent 32 different industry sectors and are collectively valued at USD $576 billion.

“It’s inspiring to witness the collective industry effort from around the world to improve ESG transparency and advance sustainable real assets,” van Tongeren says.