Streamline your ESG reporting to maintain real estate investments
Transparent ESG data
The real estate industry is one of the main contributors of greenhouse gasses worldwide. But the financial mechanism behind building and construction is highly dependent on a growth outlook. How can we combine these two competing priorities? As the investment community continues to look for ways to improve KPIs, both financially and environmentally, the societal impact of ESG reporting will only increase in importance. And yet, for asset and portfolio managers, the roles and processes for ESG management vary greatly from company to company, as well as internationally. This makes collaborating on long-term real estate investments even more complicated, both at the micro and macro level. Not only is ESG reporting data often inconsistent, but who collects and handles the data isn’t standardized either. This is why the Susteco cloud platform establishes a consistent, transparent history of environmental data to help improve ESG KPIs over time. Having everything in one user interface can help alleviate the inconsistencies of the different parties needing to access and interpret the data for reporting and decision making. On top of that, an industry with varying ESG roles and responsibilities means that a single source of truth for ESG reporting must be straightforward and as easy to understand as possible.
From compliance to competitive advantage
After all, ESG management and reporting in a small, bespoke investment firm looks different than in the real estate investment arm of a large, multi-national bank, not to mention all the sizes of financial institutions in between. Initially, most stakeholders in the investment community probably just want to make sure they’re ticking all the boxes on ESG requirements. This comes from the fact that the industry as a whole has limited knowledge and experience with ESG strategies and their practical impact on building efficiency. Along with having to juggle multiple tasks and topics on a daily basis, asset and portfolio managers often don’t have a standard, straightforward approach to rely on for their own ESG decision making, as well as for justifying expenses or further investments in a real estate property. External stakeholders can often provide little help to streamline the process, since ESG management and reporting is handled so differently depending on the individual organization or service provider. With this in mind, Susteco provides a real estate ecosystem with a cloud platform and an established network of experts, partners, and service providers to help with nearly every aspect of building management and ESG reporting.
Real-time data and diagnostics with a digital twin
To streamline the process for everyone involved, Susteco uses a digital twin of the building or group of buildings. In essence, a digital twin is a virtual representation of all the datapoints in the various systems of a building like HVAC, safety security, utilities, and waste management. A digital mapping of the building’s typography and structural build also shows how these systems and architecture interact, affect, and relate to one another. Once created, a digital twin can provide data in real time and send notifications for building managers and service providers to analyze the situation and make necessary recommendations. This makes the whole process easier for owners or asset and portfolio managers by increasing efficiency and minimizing the implementation efforts for adding additional services or systems, especially if ESG upgrades become necessary in the future. Having access to a digital twin in a single platform like Susteco means service providers can quickly respond to requests and assess the data to make initial recommendations. Rather than having a constant back and forth between different layers of property manger, owner, service provider, or tenant – essentially every aspect of operation, management, planning, and the decision-making process can happen in one unified interface.
A constant point of reference for an inconsistent industry
Asset and portfolio managers often don’t have practical insight into the daily business of managing a property or group of properties. However, performance KPIs for ESG reporting depend heavily on being able to respond quickly and appropriately to changing environmental or geo-political circumstances. Climate change in particular makes a long-term prognosis for HVAC heating or cooling costs especially challenging. When an international conflict happens on the other side of the world, the cost of energy tends to rise globally. With a digital twin, Susteco can provide useful and actionable insight into how the investment community can respond to crisis while improving ESG metrics and the overall cost of managing a building. Having a standard point of reference helps navigate the multiple levels of understanding and different processes that complicate working with ESG in the real estate industry. The Susteco ecosystem of experienced, reliable partners and service providers allows our customers to benefit from the combined knowledge of creating and maintaining an ESG strategy in the digital age. Their profound yet practical know-how of working with digital twin technology helps simplify the entire process from conception to implementation, and on to the decisions of daily business.
Data transparency is an ongoing process
At its core, ESG reporting is all about transparency. From a regulation perspective, this transparency helps show that an investment property is meeting any and all requirements, which future proofs an investment from the short to the long term. From a financial perspective, transparency goes one step further. Having a baseline and history of ESG data for a building or group of buildings helps asset and portfolio managers document not only ESG requirements, but also any incremental improvements in building efficiency. This is helpful at any stage of the building lifecycle, especially if an investment property should be sold at some point in the future. Implementing a new way of understanding and approaching ESG can be challenging. But an industry is most motivated to change when there is a financial benefit in doing so. The real estate industry is no different. Being able to make data-driven decisions about the financial impact of ESG KPIs will continue to become an integral metric for asset and portfolio managers, now and into the future. The Susteco ecosystem offers the integrated building management platform and established network of expert partners that our industry needs moving forward.
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