Decarbonising real estate is one of the most significant challenges of the net zero agenda, and one especially important for the largest real estate investment trust (REIT) in Asia, Link REIT.
The Hong Kong-based real estate investor and asset manager says it has made significant efforts this year to strengthen its sustainability work by adding "ambitious" short-term related targets against each of its sustainability topics.
The 15 environmental-focused targets include:
- 25% reduction in carbon emissions intensity across its portfolio by 2025/6
- Achieving 100% green building certification across its portfolio by 2025/6
- Developing minimum sustainability performance standards for each asset class and to meet these standards by 2025/6
- All new developments and redevelopments to conduct biodiversity assessments
Link has already begun to report against its targets in both its integrated annual report and "sustainability compendium". It said it aims to provide its stakeholders with "transparent, consistent, comparable and verifiable climate-related information" and thus follows a number of international standards.
Since the release of its sustainability report in June, Link has said that it has received positive feedback, with stakeholders claiming that it has helped align reporting with the expectations of the real estate investors.
Calvin Lee Kwan, director of sustainability and risk governance said "Our annual reporting is prepared according to global best practices including Integrated Reporting and TCFD. This ensures that we monitor and disclose the issues that are material to our business, in particular, climate change. Our latest annual report also took into account the ISSB exposure drafts. We welcome and will continue to support ISSB's effort in establishing a global uniform set of sustainability reporting standards."
He added that Link was honoured to win the award and said Link will "continue to enhance our strategy and governance as we make progress towards our goal to achieve Net Zero by 2035".
