The largest pension fund in the US, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), has joined the global real estate sustainability benchmark GRESB.
Calpers, whose real assets programme has a total net asset value of $31.8 bn (€29.1 bn) and accounts for 10.8% of the total fund, will begin reporting into GRESB in 2017.
GRESB assesses the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of real assets investments including real estate portfolios and infrastructure assets and funds.
Calpers said that joining GRESB will help it work towards the carbon footprint target set out in its five-year strategic plan, which outlines sustainability objectives across all asset classes.
‘Calpers has utilized GRESB for our infrastructure portfolio for a year now,’ said Ted Eliopoulos, the fund’s chief investment officer. ‘We are pleased to expand its use to the entire real assets programme,’ he added.
‘Manager expectations are a key part of Real Assets’ five-year ESG goals as outlined in our strategic plan,” said Paul Mouchakkaa, managing investment director of Real Assets at Calpers. ‘GRESB will help us systematically benchmark our external managers on their efforts.’
GRESB has more than 250 members, of which more than 60 are pension funds and their fiduciaries. To date, GRESB has assessed more than 1,100 property companies and funds globally.
Calpers serves more than 1.8 million retirees and with a total fund market value of around $300.7 bn, it is the largest defined-benefit public pension in the US.
