Revised criteria for building certifications

It has definitely been an eventful quarter for GRESB and there’s a new important announcement!

Background

Since its inception, the GRESB Standard has recognised building certifications as a valuable proxy for what is considered a sustainable building. High-quality certifications serve as an additional layer of transparency to investors, distinguishing spaces and facilities that have received third-party recognition for sustainability efforts. 

In the last decade, the building certification landscape has significantly evolved and expanded, resulting in an ever-growing number of available schemes covering a wider variety of ESG topics. At the same time, the scope and significance of the GRESB Standard continues to adapt to fast-changing expectations from institutional investors. 

In response, the GRESB Foundation requests stakeholder feedback to develop new building certification evaluation criteria that will:

1. Elevate best-in-class schemes, encouraging broader adoption within the industry
2. Refine the list of accepted schemes, recognizing those with the greatest credibility and impact
3. Enhance transparency on key evaluation metrics, informing investment decision-making

GRESB currently employs minimum criteria to evaluate building certification schemes for recognition within the GRESB Standard. The current list of recognized Building Certification Schemes can be found in Appendix 4a of the 2024 GRESB Reference Guide, and minimum criteria are detailed in Appendix 4c.  

Public Consultation

E.S.G. Solutions was invited to the public consultation process held from April to June 2024 to gather industry’s views and feedback on the proposed revised criteria. Industry engagement remains central to GRESB’s ability to ensure that standards development is responsive to the needs of the GRESB community and key stakeholders were solicited for feedback, including: 

• Participant Members and Industry Partners 
• Partners and other key stakeholders 
• Investor Members 

Individuals from more than 100 organizations participated in the public consultation through a combination of interviews, survey responses, and written feedback. This provided a wealth of industry knowledge on building certifications and allowed GRESB to evaluate the strength of the revised criteria.  

Technical review

Overall, feedback from the consultation indicated that revision to the criteria is welcome and that the proposed criteria would generally support the objectives set out by the GRESB Foundation. Industry feedback was incorporated into the revised criteria, before undergoing detailed review by the RESC.  

The RESC made refinements, including tailoring the materiality matrix to better suit different types of certifications (i.e. design & construction vs. operational) and alignment of terminology with other key frameworks (e.g. TNFD). Analysis was then undertaken to assess the impact of the revised criteria on the current list of recognized schemes to ensure they remain reasonable and practicable.  

Finally, the GRESB Foundation Board approved the revised criteria in September 2024.  

Implementation

GRESB’s list of recognized certification schemes is a key resource for guiding real estate strategies globally, and updates to this list are likely to have significant impacts. The GRESB Foundation and Real Estate Standards Committee (RESC) are aware of the industry’s reliance on this list and are fully committed to ensuring a smooth transition process for the implementation of the revised criteria.  

• • For certification scheme providers, GRESB is currently assessing the process to evaluate certification schemes using the revised criteria. Scheme providers are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the criteria to understand the level of evidence that will be required to demonstrate compliance.  

• • For GRESB Participants, following communication with scheme providers, GRESB will assess the feasibility of updating the list of recognized certification schemes in the GRESB Standard. This will have no impact on the 2025 and 2026 GRESB Standard.  

GRESB will provide an update to the industry in Q1 2025 on the implementation of the revised criteria following further analysis.  In the meantime all the details can be found in the document “GRESB Real Estate Building Certification – Evaluation Criteria – December 2024” here. This document sets out the criteria used to evaluate building certification schemes seeking to be recognized within the GRESB Real Estate Standard.