The ESG and Asset Management Services team at property consultancy Knight Frank recently held an event discussing Net Zero buildings. They shared practical insights from case studies in Sydney and Melbourne, whilst presenting their ten steps to decarbonisation.
There are many drivers to Net Zero buildings. A recent Knight Frank ESG Property Investor Survey found that most surveyed investors will be scrutinising the carbon emissions performance of their current portfolio – and over half will do this for acquisition due diligence to see how the assets will affect the overall portfolio’s performance.
Alongside this, mandatory sustainability reporting will demand audit-ready/reliable and consistent operational emissions data from owner and occupier real estate portfolios. Occupiers with Net Zero strategies will, in turn, be expecting information about the carbon emissions performance of their occupied buildings.
Knight Frank has suggested that operators and providers should be more involved with their building’s journey to decarbonisation and to harness the commercial opportunities that this can bring.
To begin the Net Zero journey, Knight Frank’s team has released a ten-step process to a decarbonised building.
At the event, the snap poll results revealed that most of the consultancy’s clients are at Step 5: determining a pathway (30%) or Step 8: implementing a net zero plan (35%).
They also told Knight Frank that access to quality data was the biggest challenge to achieving a net zero portfolio (65%).
