Investors’ assessment of REITs sustainability reporting and advice for refining it took center stage during Nareit’s webinar “Investor Perspectives on REIT Sustainability Reporting.” The webinar took place Aug. 7 and featured Danny Ismail, managing director at Green Street, co-head of strategic research, and founder of the firm’s global ESG research team; Brendan McCarthy, executive director for Calvert Research and Management; and Uma Moriarity, senior investment strategist and global ESG lead for CenterSquare Investment Management.
Jessica Long, senior vice president of environmental stewardship and sustainability for Nareit, moderated the panel, which was sponsored by Deloitte. Laura Pesa, a partner and the US Real Estate Sustainability, Climate, & Equity leader at Deloitte, also participated in the discussion.
Using the findings from Nareit’s REIT Industry Sustainability Report 2024 , Long asked the panelists to discuss REITs’ transparency and reporting, leadership and governance, resources and resilience, and more. Some of the panel’s observations included:
- Many REITs have narrative-based sustainability reports, but it’s critical for REITs to include the data, metrics, and the key performance indicators that support those narratives, noted Moriarty.
- GRESB is the framework that investors recommend the most because it is specific to real estate and offers the best apples-to-apples data at the portfolio level.
- REITs have a competitive advantage with their good governance structures, and McCarthy explained that he would like to see more REITs tie their executive compensation to achieving sustainability goals.
- Investors spend the most time on resources and resilience data, such as resource consumption, building emissions, and green building certifications, and that data has the largest impact on investors’ valuation process, mentioned Ismail.
- There are many regulations going into effect, and it’s important for REITs to consider how well they would be able to comply if those regulations were to go into effect immediately.
- It’s critical for REITs to explain to investors the steps they are taking to meet their emissions’ goals, the headwinds that REITs see, and their plans to overcome those headwinds, explained Pesa.
During the webinar, Pesa also described some of the sustainability resources and guidance that Deloitte offers REITs and also talked about Deloitte’s recent publication Building an Integrated Approach to Real Estate Sustainability .
Interested in learning more information about REITs and their sustainability work? Sign up for Nareit’s quarterly Sustainability Newsletter .
Additional Resources
- REITs Continue to Improve Transparency on Sustainability
- USGBC’s Journey to Support Decarbonization of the Built Environment
- Unlocking Clean Energy Supply Through Utility Grid Expansion and Improvement
- Key Takeaways from Nareit’s Sustainability and Social Responsibility Conference
- Nareit Announces Recipients of Inaugural Sustainability Impact Awards