our approach to sustainability

Need for real change

Real estate plays a crucial role in our urban lives – buildings are where we live, work and play.

Accelerating urbanization calls for an immense effort to create new buildings and optimize real estate. More importantly, it is crucial we do it right.

Because with cities’ evolving skylines come towering problems. Real estate accounts for 37 % of global carbon emissions and is putting future generations at risk. And it’s often seen as simply an asset, ignoring the real needs of people who actually use buildings.

Integrating sustainability as part of our investments

Our deep knowledge curve and scaling solutions enable us to identify areas where we can make the most significant impact. Nrep’s delivery model serves as the foundation for integrating ESG into Nrep’s investment, development and asset management process. It encompasses our sustainability purpose and vision translated into defined targets, providing clear guidance and methodologies that support decision making from the acquisition stage through the entire asset ownership period. The framework encompasses our sustainability purpose and vision translated into defined targets, providing clear guidance and methodologies that support decision making from the acquisition stage through the entire asset ownership period. It comprises:

– Sustainable Due Diligence (SDD), which guides mandatory sustainability analysis for each investment case, including a detailed assessment of ESG risks and value creation opportunities.

– Sustainable Development Performance Standard (SDPS): For new builds and retrofits, we have outlined thorough guidance and set out requirements and priorities for sustainable building design. Design needs to be aligned with the leading holistic sustainability and environmental certification schemes, rated LEED Gold, BREEAM Very Good or DGNB Gold certified at minimum and have design-stage life cycle assessment (LCA) in place.

– Sustainable Action Plans Standing Assets (SAPSA). SAPSA outlines specific asset-level requirements for existing buildings, based on our decarbonization strategy and our approach to meet ESG reporting standards.

Decarbonizing real estate

We urgently need better ways to construct and operate buildings. Nrep is committed to lead and accelerate the way towards a carbon neutral sector with practical, scalable solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

We recently joined Science Based Target initiative’s pilot program for the Building Sector, intended to support SBTi in creating decarbonization targets-setting methodologies that are aligned with Paris Agreements 1,5°C limit.

We are aligning our decarbonization targets to Science-Based Targets Building Sector guidance, read more about the process.

The Science Based Targets commitment is a pathway for companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by setting their targets in line with climate science goals. SBTi is aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement, pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Nrep will submit its targets for SBTi for validation when SBTi published the new guidance. In alignment with SBTi, Nrep uses the reduction pathways of the EU Carbon Real Estate Monitor (CRREM) as a roadmap to net zero operational emissions.

We map out details in our Decarbonization Policy and progress in our annual Impact Report.

Earth shots map our road towards the future

The Earth Shots projects in logistics and residential explore new ways of building more sustainable buildings with significantly lower operational and embodied emissions. The name Earth Shots is derived from moonshot – an ambitious and ground-breaking project, which is undertaken without the assurance of short-term benefit.

The objective is to test innovative solutions which can help us understand and learn more about decarbonization in real estate, learnings from which can be applied in our wider portfolio.

Transforming our standing assets for the future

Existing buildings are a large part of the Nrep portfolio, and the emissions performance of many of these can be improved.

A top-down estimate of Nrep’s current portfolio shows that to reach Nrep’s anticipated SBTi commitment, would require a significant investment to transform more than 300 assets. The direct benefit of brown-to-green investment, mainly lower energy bills, goes to the tenant, but a longer term view brings a different perspective.

Financing costs will most likely be lower due to EU taxonomy alignment, lenders’ focus on decarbonization and access to brown-to green funds. Greener buildings attract blue-chip tenants who are committed to lowering their CO2-emmissions and when it comes to sale, we have seen CO2-concious assets commanding a higher price.