GRESB, the global assessment of ESG performance in commercial real estate portfolios, will begin testing a dedicated sustainability benchmark for data centres in the fall of 2025. The pilot was developed in collaboration with Infrastructure Masons (iMasons), an independent association of digital infrastructure professionals, and with input from a working group of 20+ firms bringing insight from the automation, energy management, computing technology and asset management sectors.
“Digital infrastructure is a critical part of real assets portfolios, yet data centres present distinct sustainability challenges — from outsized energy consumption to complex operational demands,” observes Chris Pyke, chief innovation officer at GRESB.
The pilot will fine-tune a benchmark that is expected to be offered to the full market in 2026. Participants will report on industry-specific performance metrics that are pertinent for both investors and data centre operators. This follows after GRESB released guidance earlier this year for portfolio managers overseeing data centres, which discusses the relative merits of reporting via the real estate or infrastructure benchmarks.
As of 2024, 41 entities reported on 842 individual data centre assets and facilities within one of those two benchmarks, providing a foundation of data that underpins the new dedicated initiative. Notably, existing data from the GRESB real estate benchmark shows a steep climb in average energy use per asset thus far this decade — rising from about 60 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) or 60,000 megawatt-hours (Mh) in 2020 to 76 million kWh (76,000 Mh) last year.
“As an emerging asset class, data centres are an exciting yet complex investment opportunity,” says Santiago Suinaga, chief executive officer of iMasons. “By providing investors with actionable insights and metrics, this new benchmark will help investors and developers better understand and improve the performance of data centers while driving long-term value.”
In addition to energy, the pilot data centre benchmark will also drill down to water use and worker health and safety. Canadian representation in the GRESB working group includes Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Mantle Developments and Quinn + Partners.
