Allianz Real Estate just announced plans to upgrade 57 of its 500 directly held assets as it looks to reduce its global carbon emissions by a quarter by 2025.
The real estate industry’s ability to deliver greener buildings – mainly through retrofitting of existing assets – is crucial, says Ali Ingram, director and sustainability lead in JLL’s European office investment team.
“It’s great that vehicles such as Invesco’s ETF will not only concentrate on real estate companies but also on companies focused on retrofitting existing buildings and those who are innovating,” Ingram says.
In France, asset manager VIA AM launched a carbon-neutral share class to compensate for the greenhouse emissions of companies in its portfolio through carbon offsetting.
At the same time, from January 2022, forthcoming EU Taxonomy, a classification guideline, will allow funds and investment vehicles promoted as environmentally friendly to state how much of their portfolio is aligned.
Backed by the likes of Nuveen and Vanguard, a Net Zero Asset Managers coalition now represents more than a third of all global assets under management pledging to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.