Careers
Sustainability Through Data Innovation
Believing sustainability should be at the core in everything we do, Alexandra –head of Asia Pacific indirect real estate strategies for CBRE Investment Management – is leading the strategies to help drive sustainability through data innovation.
September 15, 2023 3 Minute Read
When it comes to sustainability, what everyone wants to know is what you’re doing about it and to see concrete actions.
Three countries, two business lines and almost 20 years at CBRE. During much of Alexandra’s impressive tenure, she has also been leading initiatives that create value for clients, authoring her group’s first policy covering sustainability issues in 2009. She believes passionately that sustainability should be part of everything we do.
“When it comes to sustainability, what everyone wants to know is what you’re doing about it and to see tangible actions,” Alexandra says. And she’s been doing just that.
In 2021, Alexandra and her colleagues on the CBRE Investment Management Indirect team in Australia took the proactive step to review more than 8,000 assets and map the percentage of each client’s portfolio that was considered at high or critical physical risk from climate change. “That was massive. No one in the business had been doing that. There wasn’t a model we could use, so we mapped every GPS coordinate for those assets and built one internally to analyze the data—per client, per sector, per country.”
The new system was well-received and illustrated the kind of progress that can be scaled, leading to an expanded scope of work in 2022. They identified assets facing higher critical risks from climate change, based on their mitigation plans at the asset level, and guided those clients to commit to a net zero carbon emissions target and develop transition plans.
Then, by downloading 6,000 variables from the independent GRESB Assessment, they developed a model that produced even more detailed results. “After seeing our climate change analysis for 2021, we immediately focused on what we should do about it. This was greatly received by our clients.”
In 2023, Alexandra and her colleagues are already working on the next big challenge: collaborating with operating partners to collect more data from tenants to develop a total picture of emissions. They’ll use that to map client portfolios’ exposure to the risks of climate change.
“When we look back, we are very proud that our initiatives weren’t just a concept but actually became an actionable outcome. It’s about sustainability but also fiduciary duty, making sure our client’s investments are protected and value is preserved.”
To learn more about how we’re realizing a sustainable future, download our Corporate Responsibility Report here.
“When it comes to sustainability, what everyone wants to know is what you’re doing about it and to see tangible actions,” Alexandra says. And she’s been doing just that.
In 2021, Alexandra and her colleagues on the CBRE Investment Management Indirect team in Australia took the proactive step to review more than 8,000 assets and map the percentage of each client’s portfolio that was considered at high or critical physical risk from climate change. “That was massive. No one in the business had been doing that. There wasn’t a model we could use, so we mapped every GPS coordinate for those assets and built one internally to analyze the data—per client, per sector, per country.”
The new system was well-received and illustrated the kind of progress that can be scaled, leading to an expanded scope of work in 2022. They identified assets facing higher critical risks from climate change, based on their mitigation plans at the asset level, and guided those clients to commit to a net zero carbon emissions target and develop transition plans.
Then, by downloading 6,000 variables from the independent GRESB Assessment, they developed a model that produced even more detailed results. “After seeing our climate change analysis for 2021, we immediately focused on what we should do about it. This was greatly received by our clients.”
In 2023, Alexandra and her colleagues are already working on the next big challenge: collaborating with operating partners to collect more data from tenants to develop a total picture of emissions. They’ll use that to map client portfolios’ exposure to the risks of climate change.
“When we look back, we are very proud that our initiatives weren’t just a concept but actually became an actionable outcome. It’s about sustainability but also fiduciary duty, making sure our client’s investments are protected and value is preserved.”
To learn more about how we’re realizing a sustainable future, download our Corporate Responsibility Report here.
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