Insights into the use of GRESB as an ESG benchmarking tool
Anders, Gregory; Booth, Colin A.; Wiejak-Roy, Grazyna A.; Horry, Rosemary E.; Squires, Graham
Authors
Gregory Anders
Colin Booth Colin.Booth@uwe.ac.uk
Professor of Smart and Sustainable Infrastructures
Mrs Grazyna Wiejak-Roy Grazyna.Wiejak-Roy@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Real Estate and Economics
Rosemary E. Horry
Graham Squires
Abstract
Purpose - Sustainability practices and reporting have consistently evolved over the years with trends towards more holistic approaches with respect to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). In the real estate sector over the last decade, GRESB (formerly known as Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) has become the leading global ESG benchmarking tool for real asset investments. However, it has attracted limited research, and this underpins this works’ motivation for the exploration of the perspectives of real estate stakeholders relating to the uptake and use of GRESB.
Design/methodology/approach - The approach used in this study is qualitative in nature, adopting a phenomenological research design to capture the essence of the lived experiences of purposely sampled participants. This is done through an interpretative phenomenological analysis of semi-structured interviews.
Findings - Legislation, regulation and risk management are the main motivations for engaging with ESG-related issues. The main benefit of GRESB is benchmarking, while the main weaknesses lie in the data collection and the undeveloped social component. Within data, the major challenges are observed for the transparency of performance data and overreliance on policies instead of performance. GRESB would benefit from the inclusion of (1) more detailed sustainability benchmarks relating to social and governance components, and (2) social value metrics in their overall assessment.
Practical implications - Policymakers need to develop or support globally recognized reporting standards to increase the quality, accuracy, and comparability of ESG information.
Originality - This is the first study on ESG reporting using a phenomenological research design.
Journal Article Type
Article
Acceptance Date
Jan 15, 2025
Deposit Date
Jan 15, 2025
Print ISSN
0263-7472
Publisher
Emerald
Peer Reviewed
Peer Reviewed
Keywords
sustainability; environment; governance; Real estate; Property Property Management
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This file is under embargo due to copyright reasons.
