Future Cities

Accelerating Change

By: Rob Bernard, Chief Sustainability Officer

January 10, 2024 3 Minute Read

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Answering The Call For Sustainability Solutions

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Last month, world leaders and more than 100,000 delegates, observers and staff gathered for the United Nations’ annual COP climate event, nearly twice as many attendees as the prior year.

I attended my first COP nearly 15 years ago as a representative for Microsoft. At the time, the number of attendees was a fraction of this year’s turnout, and the press barely paid note to what was happening.

Much has changed, but we are only just beginning.

The world is watching and waiting.

2022 saw the largest volume of global renewable energy ever created. At the same time, 2022 set the record for the highest output of carbon in human history, and 2023 is likely to surpass that record. 2023 is also officially the warmest year ever recorded.

Previous projections put us on path to cross the 1.5°C temperature increase threshold—a target established by the 2015 Paris Agreement to mitigate the worst effects of climate change—sometime after 2030. Recent data have revised that timeline to as early as this decade, with the Met Office, UK’s meteorological service, predicting that we may cross this threshold this year due to the effects of El Niño.

Against this backdrop, a question I increasingly get asked is, “So, what can we do?”

It’s the same question that brought me to CBRE a year ago. And it’s the question I work on every day.

What’s the scale of the challenge?

With nearly 40 percent of global energy use associated with the built environment, eyes are focused on any company that operates an office, a store, a manufacturing plant, a hospital, a data center or other building spaces.

At CBRE, we’ve committed to net zero emissions by 2040, with interim goals to reduce the intensity of emissions for our clients by more than two-thirds.

As such, our progress is intrinsically tied to our ability to help our clients decarbonize their spaces globally. Their goals and ours are intertwined. I view this as a great synergy: To solve our challenge, we must solve our clients’ challenges.

This is a proxy for how the world must work holistically if we are to make progress on the climate challenges ahead.

But we need clarity and, above all else, simplicity.

The world of sustainability is getting increasingly complex—regulatory pressures, stakeholder pressures, evolving science, aging electrical infrastructure, heavy dependence on carbon-emitting energy sources, physical climate-risk uncertainty. All of these combine to make the task of determining the best next steps sometimes seem overwhelming.

To address the increasing challenges at the intersection of commercial real estate and climate change, we need to create a simplified approach that empowers organizations to drive meaningful action at scale.

We need to create roadmaps to physically intervene to reduce energy loads and identify more low-carbon energy sources. We need partnerships with landlords and tenants to create new green leasing structures. We need to accelerate capital markets to access funds required for scalable infrastructure change. And we need better data for the growing number of requirements that we all are tackling.

The good news is that the world wants us to succeed.

More than 6,000 of the world’s largest companies have committed to aggressive carbon reduction goals. And with 80 percent of buildings that will be occupied in 2050 already in existence, the market is evolving to support the work that many companies are doing to retrofit spaces to be more efficient.

Green premiums are no longer theoretical; CBRE research shows that properties with sustainability credentials have higher rents, greater occupancy and command higher asset valuations. And renewable energy prices in most markets are lower than fossil fuel-based alternatives.

Companies around the world are bringing a combination of new technologies, changing economics, advances in global regulatory requirements and incredible innovation and energy to this challenge.

Having worked nearly 20 years on these issues, I’m motivated to help accelerate the transition that the commercial real estate industry must drive if we are to meet society’s climate goals and move towards a more sustainable built environment.

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