Multifamily and industrial properties are routinely lumped together as favoured investment assets, but asset managers face divergent degrees of difficulty when they seek to mine value from energy performance.

More than 50 per cent of participating Canadian portfolios were grouped in the top two brackets of results, with 11 earning 5-star status and six attaining a 4-star rating.

The global benchmark for ESG performance of commercial real estate portfolios and infrastructure investments has reacquired its independence and established a non-profit foundation to oversee standards development.

Participation in the global benchmarking exercise increased 18 per cent from 2019 and represents more than USD $5.3 trillion worth of assets under management.

Technically, three real estate entities are ranked in the 2020 Clean200 list of publicly traded companies, but just two of them have conventional commercial real estate portfolios.

The mounting consequences of being stuck fast in the wrong place for an extended wrong time begin with soaring insurance premiums and end with stranded assets.

Among global regions, Australia/New Zealand once again attained this year's top average score, but reports no asset-level energy intensity or building certification data for multifamily properties.

Major Canadian players figure among both GRESB investor members with full access to the data and the larger complement of management members that report and are benchmarked through the real estate assessment.

Oxford Properties Group and Ivanhoé Cambridge have been benchmarked atop their North American peers in the 2019 GRESB Real Estate Assessment, which this year plotted the ESG performance of 1,005 companies, funds and REITs worldwide.

Canada's Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance suggests there is more untapped opportunity than coordinated action in a market grappling with emerging imperatives for climate-related financial disclosure and integrating ESG measures.

Triovest achieved the best GRESB score, 88 out of 100 possible points, in its peer group of non-listed, diversified office/industrial portfolios.

Neil Pegram is assuming the role of Director of Americas with GRESB, a global benchmark program tracking real estate portfolios' environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.

Accessibility and inclusiveness are on the agenda for a pending update of the model green office lease that has become an entrenched standard in Canada's commercial real estate sector.

Eighteen Canadian real estate organizations undertook the rigorous reporting exercise, which plots portfolio-wide ESG (environmental, social, governance) intent, practices and outcomes, and collectively achieved an average score of 70 out of a possible 100 points.

GRESB has named Sander Paul Van Tongeren as its new managing director.

The inaugural Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark assessment for infrastructure reveals that the asset class generally lags real estate's offerings of environmental, social and governance evidence for investors.

Sixteen Canadian organizations accounted for more than 337,000 megawatt-hours or nearly 42 per cent of electricity savings tallied in North America, while 162 GRESB participants in the United States delivered the remainder.