Investors and lenders are expected to increasingly focus on the physical and transitional risks of climate change, in turn upending some conventional views of costs and value.

Multifamily assets posted the largest year-over-year decline in net operating income among the four major sectors in the Canada Annual Property Index, while delivering a 7 per cent total return on investment for 2021.

Canadian commercial real estate assets are comparatively less exposed to the dire physical threats that extreme weather poses or has already served up in other global regions.

Newly released 2020 investment results find industrial and multifamily assets on the positive side of the national average total return for 2,356 directly held standing assets, which registered -4.1 per cent.