Sustainable Property Achieves 7% Higher Returns

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17 October 2014 | Updated 01 January 1970

The European Public Real Estate Association’s best practice recommendations in environment and sustainability standards are helping power European listed real estate up global sustainability rankings it seems

The number of listed property companies achieving the highest level of compliance with the European Public Real Estate Association’s (EPRA) best practice recommendations in sustainability standards has doubled over the past year. As if to prove the case, 16 Gold Awards were issued at the EPRA’s annual conference recently.

The impact of the Gold Awards is being seen at a worldwide level with listed companies clearly outpacing private equity real estate funds in recording an average 7% higher performance within the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) survey results, released in early September. This survey also highlighted European listed real estate (54 points) outperforming its listed counterparts in Asia and North America (51 and 49 points respectively), while also closing the gap with global leader, Australia (68 points). The European listed sector also outperformed the European non-listed sector, with respective scores of 54 points and 48 points.

Andrew Saunders, Finance Director at EPRA said: “For the first time, the majority of European listed property companies are now reporting on at least one sustainability performance measure in 2014. The positive results of EPRA raising the bar in setting environmental standards are being seen all the way up to a global level, as we’ve witnessed in the recent GRESB survey results. The 16 companies achieving the Gold Standard come from across Europe; in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium, showing that listed firms are striving to improve their sustainability game regardless of where they are located.”

JLL’s Upstream Sustainability team assessed 86 listed European real estate companies. These were:

British Land Company, Beni Stabili, Citycon, Cofinimmo, Derwent London, Eurocommercial, Foncière des Régions, Gecina, Grainger, Great Portland Estates, Intu Properties, Klepierre, Land Securities Group, SEGRO, Unibail-Rodamco and Workspace Group. A further four companies received silver and six bronze awards.

Hans Op't Veld, Head of Listed Real Estate at Dutch pension investment manager, PGGM, said: “PGGM is one of the world’s largest investors in listed real estate companies and we have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the firms in which we invest aim to achieve the highest standards of sustainability practice. Therefore we welcome the role that EPRA and these awards play in raising performance and market awareness with regard to this extremely important issue and we encourage all those companies who are behind in disclosing their environmental impact to join the majority in doing so.”

Olivier Elamine, CEO at alstria office REIT & Chairman of the EPRA Sustainability Committee said: “Public disclosure of data is a fundamental component of a sustainable approach to real estate. EPRA leads the way in bringing greater consistency and clarity to companies' disclosure around their environmental performance. With 26 companies now achieving an award and in the GRESB survey, it is no surprise the European listed sector outperformed both the European non-listed and North American/Asian listed sectors.”

Article written by Brian Shillibeer | Published 17 October 2014

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