GRESB: Real Estate’s Sustainability Score Rose Globally for 2017

The real estate sector worldwide improved its sustainability performance in 2017, according to GRESB, a firm that gauges the ESG performance of real assets.

For North America, the average GRESB score for 2017 rose to 64, from 59 in 2016, the Amsterdam-based GRESB reports. Scores were based on input from 204 firms, with total assets under management of $2.3 trillion. The region performed better than the global average, and also saw the best annual improvement of all regions.

In North America, property companies cut down their energy consumption by 2.5%, carbon emissions by 2.9%, and water use by 1.3%.

The sector’s average global GRESB score for 2017 was up three points to 63, from 2016’s 60. Publicly traded firms continued to do better than private entities, and the office sector did better than other property sectors on sustainability measures. The global survey included 850 real estate-sector participants, with a total of 77,000 assets, representing more than $3.7 trillion in value.

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These firms’ efforts to conserve energy are on the path set out in the “Sustainability Development Goals” that the United Nations supports, according to GRESB.

Among the global highlights:

These firms reduced their “like-for-like” power consumption by 1.1%, equivalent to that consumed by about 80,000 US homes.

Their “like-for-like” carbon emissions were down 2.2%, equivalent to the emissions of 113,000 cars.

They cut their water consumption by 0.5%, saving the amount of water that 999 Olympic swimming pools would consume.

They also diverted the equivalent of 399,008 truckloads of landfill waste.

Sander Paul van Tongeren, co-founder and managing director at GRESB, noted, “We are delighted to see an increase in the number of participants and assets across all regions for eight consecutive years. It’s encouraging that, once again, GRESB participants were able to lower energy, water, and carbon emissions. We hope that the commitment and meaningful actions taken by the 850 GRESB participants serve as an example to others and help to drive improved sustainability performance more broadly across the market.”

Tags: ESG, GRESB, Real Estate, Sustainability

Workers at UK-based Capita, a provider of business process management services, have voted to strike in response to the company’s proposal to close the current defined benefit plan, and transfer participants to a defined contribution plan.

The union Unite conducted an industrial action ballot following the proposal to close the current defined benefit plan, and the workers will begin six consecutive days of strike action starting Oct. 5. In June, Capita informed its employees of significant changes to its pension arrangements, which Unite says will cause the plan’s participants to “suffer a massive cut in their retirement income.”

“The disgraceful plans by Capita to slash the deferred pay that staff will get in retirement is utterly unacceptable,” said Dominic Hook, Unite national officer, in a statement. “Capita’s pension proposals will have far-reaching consequences for the retirement of many Unite members. Some staff will lose a shocking 70% of their retirement income.”

However, a Capita spokesman defended the company’s decision to move its workers from a defined benefit pension into a defined contribution plan.

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“We are disappointed that these employees, some 550, are to support Unite’s strike action,” said the spokesman. “We are in the minority of companies still offering a defined benefit pension plan to a small number, some 4% of our workforce, of our 73,000 employees.”

He added that, “their accrued benefits in the existing defined benefit pension are protected and the new defined contribution offer is above the average terms offered by both our competitors and FTSE 100 companies in the UK.”

But according to Unite, under the proposed pension changes, a 60-year-old worker who makes £25,000 a year, and pays 3% into the plan would see their pension go from earning approximately £2,000 a year for the final five years of service to only £350 a year. This translates to a loss of around £1,650 per year, and a total loss of about £33,000 over a 20-year retirement.

Meanwhile, a 35-year-old employee paying 7% into the plan would see their projected pension halved from £22,000 per year to £11,000 upon being moved into the new proposed plan and paying 6% until retirement, said Unite.

“The extremely high vote in favor of strike action shows how strongly members feel about this,” said Hook. “Capita must urgently rethink these pensions proposals in order to prevent industrial action.”

Capita said it has plans in place to ensure that “any potential disruption to our clients’ services is mitigated.”

Tags: Capita, Defined benefit (db) pension plans, Pension, UK, Unite