CBRE Recognized for Transparency about Carbon, Energy

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Dave Pogue, CBRE’s global director of corporate responsibility

For the third consecutive year, CBRE Group Inc. has been recognized for climate change transparency by being included in CDP’s Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Climate Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI). In addition, this year CBRE received a perfect score of 100, its highest score ever.

The award came on the heels of a report indicating that investor interest in reducing climate risk in investment portfolios might be reaching a tipping point.

CDP’s annual index comprises S&P 500 companies that are graded within the top 10 percent for having disclosed high-quality data regarding carbon emissions and energy through CDP’s climate change program. Top scores indicate a high level of transparency in disclosure of climate change–related information, with the goal of giving investors a level of comfort regarding corporate accountability and readiness for changing market demands and emissions regulation.

“A firm’s ability to improve its environmental performance begins with an accurate understanding of its impact. We have placed a great deal of importance on measurement and metrics to guide our practices and are pleased to have again been recognized for those efforts,” Dave Pogue, CBRE’s global director of corporate responsibility, said in a prepared statement. “We know how important it is to accurately disclose our own carbon emissions and energy data, and we encourage our clients to do the same.”

“We continue to strive to provide the most accurate assessment of our environmental conditions, as we recognize that only through this process can we demonstrate our progress over time,” Pogue told Commercial Property Executive.

Other CRE companies in the CDP top 100 list included Welltower (formerly Health Care REIT Inc.), and Simon Property Group.

CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) works to transform how the world does business, so as to prevent dangerous climate change and protect natural resources. In the group’s own words, “We see a world where capital is efficiently allocated to create long-term prosperity rather than short-term gain at the expense of our environment.”

Separately, The Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2015, a report released earlier this month by the Climate Policy Initiative, notes that after leveling off in 2012 and declining in 2013, the amount of climate finance invested globally in 2014 increased by 18 percent, from $331 billion to an estimated $391 billion. Of that, private investment remained the largest source, accounting for $243 billion, or 62 percent. Private investment in renewable energy grew by 26 percent in 2014 after two years of decline, resulting in record volumes (103 Megawatts) of new installed capacity.

The report also noted, however, that an estimated $16.5 trillion will be needed from 2015 to 2030, “to reorient the global energy system to one that is consistent with the 2°C goal,” and that even more would be needed to reduce land use emissions and for societies and economies to adapt to the impacts of climate change.