GRESB updates, including some Regional Insights
With so many events, initiatives and products launched by GRESB in this last quarter of the year, it may be difficult to catch up with the various industry trends and priorities in preparation for a successful 2026. We thought to summarise the key bullet points for your ease in this blog article.
- The first hot topic MUST be the announced release of the new 2026 GRESB Standards, whose details including scoring and reporting impacts have already been shared with you in our previous GRESB blog article here (pretty much the same day they were officially published, you know we’re pretty quick on the uptake!). If you want to hear directly from the GRESB team about the 2026 GRESB Standards Updates, the forthcoming 2026 GRESB Foundation Roadmap and the broader engagements planned for the years ahead) join their imminent webinar online on 2nd December (real estate, link here) and 4th December (infrastructure, link here).
- GRESB is launching a Public Consultation, planned for February-April 2026, to execute their longer-term vision to reward measured, real-world performance in the future versions of the Standard. The focus will be on investor priority topics, including energy and GHG emissions, and the scoring weight will be re-balanced across the Standard. As always, the transition will be smooth for participants up until and beyond implementation in 2028 (targeted). The same timescale is expected for both Real Estate and Infrastructure, where the focus will also move towards year-over-year performance improvement to reward virtuous behavious.
- We’ll also see very soon a complete revamping of the current resources package, expected from early 2026, with GRESB Partners having early access to the new platforms. The new guides will feature streamlined access to key information, seach for answers with AI support and the option to share feedback directly in the platform, with the integration of the reference guide and scoring document. We can’t wait to use them!
- Building on the release of the 2025 Benchmark results in October 2025, available here, GRESB is currenlty hosting the largest-ever series of global events: the GRESB Regional Insights series returns with in-person gatherings around the world—bringing data to life and turning insights into impact. You can find all the dates and venues here. As we wait for the London events on Tuesday 25th November (Infrastructure) and Tuesday 9th December (Real Estate) to review the UK statistics, we are delighted to hear that our Asian Clients report a strong growth in GRESB uptake in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and India.
- Having attended the Italian GRESB Regional Insights 2025 event in Milan on Thursday 30th October, we would like to share some statistics about this Country where our Clients have indeed exceeded their expectations:
Italy Results 2025
The Italian results have shown another successful year of constant growth for the GRESB Real Estate reporting, with 121 entities participating in 2025 (up from 116 in 2024). These figures can be compared with 105 entities in Germany (down from 114 in 2024), 75 in Switzerland (up from 71 in 2024) and 46 in the Netherlands (up from 45 in 2024).
The breakdown of property types shows that the residential and office sectors are leading the charge, with 42 and 29 funds, REITs and property companies respectively. Entities where less than 75% of their assets’ Gross Asset Value can be associated to a specific property type fall within the “diversified” definition.
We find particularly insightful the three graphs below, which demonstrate how GRESB has helped generate measurable ESG impacts across the board over the years. A radar distribution was chosen to visualise the progression of the GRESB scores from 2023 to 2025, broken down by individual Aspect. Notable improvements have been recorded in building certification (driven by the progressive uptake in BREEAM In-Use assessments), which went from 43% to 49% in just two years), waste (from 32% to 44%), risk assessment (from 65% to 73%), GHG (from 63% to 72%), tenants & community (from 60% to 69%), energy (from 57% to 68%), data monitoring and review (from 51% to 63%). Water remains stable at 56%, while targets has actually decreased from 68% to 58%, possibly due to the introduction of new specific Net Zero objectives which need to be supported by more robust science-based evidence to avoid greenwashing claims. As all the various gaps are being filled, it is interesting to witness how the shape of the radar graph becomes progressively some rounded.
Here’s another incredibly informative graph, showing the progressive increase of ESG data coverage from 2022 to 2025, broken down into the four main categories Energy, GHG emissions, Water and Waste. The figures provided by GRESB may well represent the most robust benchmarks for the Real Estate industry in Italy and could be used to set minimum targets for any fund, REIT or property company willing to disclose thier own ESG credentials to their stakeholders.
Finally, we found out that 22% of the Italian assets have been reported to perform better than the ASHRAE 100-2024 threshold. The graph below shows the average energy intensity in kWh/sqm of the five main property types compared to their relevant benchmark. The most energy efficient assets are those in the healthcare sector, followed by retail and residential, with office and industrial buildings instead performing worse than expected. The yellow bars below represent the two asset classes with higher energy intensities than the ASHRAE benchmarks (in green).
Lastly, as we wrap up our November GRESB updates, we would like to share with our readers a couple of happy news, which are a testament of our effort to excel in this field over the years and definitely keep fuelling our passion in everything we do here at E.S.G. Solutions.
- As previously covered in our GRESB Results 2025 blog article here, this was by far the most succesful year for our Real Estate Clients. Now GRESB has also formally announced here the 2025 Sector Leaders and Top Performers, recognising participants who demonstrate outstanding performance by sector, region and nature of ownership across the Real Estate and Infrastructure Assessments. This year’s results highlight organisations exemplifying strong fundamentals, operational excellence and measurable performance that drives long-term value. We are proud that 5 FUNDS managed by our client COIMA SGR S.p.A. have been included in the prestigious lists of Regional (i.e. Europe) and also Global Sector Leader. You can click here if you want to hear more details about their projects.
- Our expertise in technical ESG advisory doesn’t go unnoticed. GRESB has kindly asked our colleagues Antonio Messina and Anna Rinaldi to take part in their interview series and discuss their journey with the Accredited Professional (AP) credential, the insights they gained along the way and how it has strengthened their ability to support Clients. We eventually featured in their Case Study Spotlight “Building expertise and confidence: E.S.G. Solutions’ journey with the GRESB AP Program”, which can be found here.
Feel free to reach out to our team of accredited AP Team Leaders to hear about our GRESB reporting service offering and our fully customer-centric approach: our email is info@esgsolutionsltd.com and our telephone is +442045268272.
