By Tony Liou, Partner Energy President
Steps to reaching your net zero goals and avoiding “stranded assets”
With the increased focus on ESG+R and climate change, more corporations and investors are making public commitments to carbon neutrality. The Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative that launched in December 2020 now has 128 signatories–overseeing $43 trillion in assets–committed to supporting net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.
While there are many reasons to commit to GHG reduction, such as government regulations and investor pressure, for the commercial real estate industry, decarbonizing properties has clear financial benefits as well.
In addition to savings on the increasing cost of energy and water, as well as future costs of carbon emissions, decarbonization is vital if owners and managers want to avoid the issue of “stranded assets,” which are “properties that will be exposed to the risk of early economic obsolescence due to climate change because they will not meet future regulatory efficiency standards or market expectations,” as defined by Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor.
When it comes to the actual process of decarbonization, there is no single pathway due to the uniqueness of each property, portfolio, and business. But it all starts with goal setting.
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