Single standard would help collection of carbon data

After 16 years of involvement in sustainability and real estate Derk Welling, Senior Responsible Investment & Governance Manager, APG Asset Management, is still not satisfied with the carbon use data achieved so far.

“There are still excuses not to collect data, or there are some hindrances in collecting the data. But just relying on proxies is not sufficient anymore, especially not with the SFDR,” he told Real Asset Insight’s Richard Betts during the recent EPRA Sustainability Summit.

“What we see now with the introduction of the SFDR, and especially with the definitions around sustainable Investments, the landscape is, step by step changing,” he said.

The number of data providers has increased, so the data landscape has become more fragmented. Standardisation is important but there is more than one standard available.

“For global investors like us, it’s always good to have one global standard,” he said, adding that the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor (CRREM) pathway is the one that APG favours.

“CRREM pathways are not perfect of course, but maybe one of the takeaways for what has been done over the past decades is developing standards, new standards and competing standards. That’s often also a hindrance.”

Welling has called for more standard data disclosure. “I expect that EPRA could play a role there with peers globally and ultimately arrive at a global data hub where investors could retrieve all the information they need for regulatory reporting.”