The British Property Federation has teamed up with institutional investors in the private rented sector to provide an ESG guide for residential buildings.
Experts from Grainger, British Land, CBRE and Aviva Investors among others worked together to collate 42 relevant frameworks and accreditation systems for landlords, operators, designers and developers.
The guide splits this into three groups – internationally recognised (19), domestic (11), and best practice systems (12). This includes BREEAM, GRESB and Passivhaus tools, through to UK Green Building Council and UN frameworks.
Within each system, the guide examines the audience, type of coverage and asset type. The guide also explains upcoming policy and sustainability requirements for residential buildings.
Alex Notay, placemaking and investment director at PfP Capital, said: “It is well understood that the real estate sector contributes substantially to global emissions, yet it is often missed that residential emissions and energy use are significantly higher than non-residential buildings.”
According to GlobalABC’s fifth annual status report, in 2019 residential buildings contributed 22% of energy usage, compared with 8% for non-residential buildings. When it comes to CO2 emissions – residential building contributed 17%, compared with 11% for non-commercial.
Notay added: “Decarbonising our housing sector is a critical element to achieve net zero and despite advances in sustainable and zero-carbon new-build homes, the institutional private rented sector’s path remains unclear.”
She said the guidance “distils the vast options and information into digestible summaries to help members understand the current ESG landscape and enable better conversations with specialist consultants, investors, policymakers and customers”.
The BPF’s Residential ESG Working Group aims to evaluate the sector’s uptake of ESG services and how it can be measured and reported.
James Simondson, assistant director of policy at the BPF, said: “ESG serves two chief purposes – it acts as a tool to mitigate risk from the known and unknown future and build resilience to these risks, and a framework within which real estate can create positive environmental and social change.
“We must work to redefine real estate’s role in tackling the problems we face as a society, and the ESG framework is a tool to do this.”
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