Brochure Taking action!

We, REPM, believe that sustainability is part of our investment management responsibility.

Olivia Muir, Head of Sustainability, Real Estate & Private Markets

Real Estate & Private Markets (REPM) have released a sustainable investing annual update since 2010, and in this 13th edition, we focus on the future and show how we are walking the talk.

Sustainability has long been a part of our DNA, and our businesses have reflected this accordingly as the topic has grown over the past years, as have our resources.

This year we have made new investments and changes to our sustainability in-house resources, increasing the number of sustainability experts embedded into our various business areas and growing and changing our Sustainability Team working across REPM.

2022 was predictable only in its unpredictability! Despite economic and market volatility being a top concern across our business, sustainability remains at our heart. Our team is acting out our sustainability strategy to ensure REPM continues to drive change in our environments and societies, and be an investment manager of choice for our clients.

We have a colossal task ahead of us. Real estate is one of the biggest contributors to global emissions (~40%), food and forestry account for ~ 24%, while transportation is another 14%. REPM encompasses all these industries (and more), and one of our primary challenges lies in this diversity of business, while maintaining consistency of sustainability approaches and standards. We, REPM, believe that sustainability is part of our investment management responsibility. We believe that sustainability is linked with long-term financial returns, and thus considering sustainability is a business viability and market requirement.

In 2022, we upgraded processes across our business to capture the ever-evolving market best practices, including regulatory updates. We have made material progress too on our approach to physical risk across our businesses as well as carbon reduction.

2023 is going to be another busy year, full of sustainability action. One priority is the refresh of our quantitative environmental targets (shown later in this report). We first set these over five years ago, in a different business to today’s, and they require an update to remain meaningful and, crucially, measurable.

This edition details some of the efforts underway in our fight to protect our business and clients against the worst impacts of climate change. We also share what we are doing to better our impact on the environment and societies.