Real estate investors and collaborating organisations have published a guide to help property investors develop and implement an “impact-based approach” in real estate finance and management.
The guide was produced by the property working group of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) alongside the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and other partner organisations. The property working group comprises more than 25 institutional investors and commercial banks, such as Germany’s Allianz Real Estate, French state-backed lender Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, and M&G Real Estate in the UK.
UNEP FI said the guide, entitled ‘Positive Impact Real Estate Investment Framework’, responded to finance sector interest in “investment outcomes for productive, equitable, health and resilient economies and societies”.
The framework was aimed at helping institutions identify impact “areas of influence” and corresponding investment opportunities, measure ex-ante and ex-post impact, and “ultimately re-orient institutional capacities and capital for intentional delivery of outcomes that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.
It is intended to help guide decisions at any stage of the property investment cycle. A number of ‘leading questions’ and recommended actions are identified for each of four investment objectives.
The framework draws on previous work done by UNEP FI that translating the SDGs into meaningful terms for businesses and financing impact assessment.
Tatiana Bosteels, head of responsible property investment at Hermes Investment Management and chair of the UNEP FI Investment Commission, said: “The Real Estate Impact Framework is a useful tool for investors to map and select the most relevant actions they can take to support the SDGs suiting their specific investment strategies.”
Bosteels was one of the lead authors of the guide and co-chairs the property working group with Anna Murray, vice president, sustainability, at Bentall Kennedy.
The guide can be found here.
