PRESS RELEASE
EPRA in drive to improve sustainability reporting for European listed real estate sector with launch of Best Practice guidelines
Gareth Lewis, EPRA Finance Director said: “Although the listed sector is leading the way compared with the broader real estate sector, around two thirds of listed property companies in the EPRA European index are yet to disclose their sustainability performance . With the launch of these best practice guidelines, EPRA hopes to lift standards in this area in the same way we’ve encouraged better transparency and established unified performance benchmarks in the industry’s financial reporting.”
He was speaking to journalists at EPRA’s annual conference in London where the industry body also announced the creation of its Sustainability Reporting Awards. These are to be sponsored by Dutch pension fund manager APG with the first results announced at next year’s annual meeting in Berlin.
Lewis said that consultation with EPRA members had revealed that one of the main obstacles to uniform reporting on sustainability was the sheer range of data disclosure possible in the real estate sector that make for an extremely confusing situation for both companies and investors. However, with a gradual consensus now emerging on priority key performance indicators, such as greenhouse gas emissions, it had become possible for EPRA to build best practice recommendations (BPR) around these areas of agreement.
The BPR were developed by the EPRA Sustainability Reporting Committee with help from consultants Jones Lang LaSalle. They are comprised of the EPRA Sustainability Performance Measures, which outline the key metrics against which companies should report in terms of absolute (total) performance and intensity of use for:
Warren Austin of UK property company Hammerson and Chairman of EPRA’s Sustainability Reporting Committee said: “The process EPRA adopted of intensive and direct consultation with property companies and investors was sometimes difficult and frustrating. However, the beauty of this approach is that we have now arrived at a position where we have the implicit ‘buy-in’ from a large proportion of the European listed sector and are well placed to replicate the successes of the financial BPR in raising the quality and consistency of sustainability reporting for the European real estate sector.”
ENDS
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About EPRA
The European Public Real Estate Association - is the voice of the publicly traded European real estate sector. With more than 200 active members, EPRA represents over EUR 250 billion of real estate assets and 90% of the market capitalisation of the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Europe Index. Through the provision of better information to investors, improvement of the general operating environment, encouragement of best practices and the cohesion and strengthening of the industry, EPRA works to encourage greater investment in listed real estate companies in Europe.
For more information please contact: Gareth Lewis, EPRA.
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