Boosting Your Real Estate Portfolio ESG Score with Green Walls and Green Roofs
The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework has taken center stage in the real estate industry, enabling the quantification and reporting of the social impact of investments in the built environment. Up to this point, the Environmental and Governance pillars have been more widely used, with well-defined metrics and broad acceptance across the industry.
Currently gaining momentum in real estate investment criteria is the Social pillar, with an increased focus on building occupant health and wellness. This growing force can be attributed to the increasing awareness of the impacts of the built environment on human health, catalyzing the demand for healthy buildings in cities.
Western Publishing Building with green roof and amenity spaces in Manhattan, NYC
What is a Healthy Building?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a healthy building as a space that supports the physical, psychological, and social health and well-being of building occupants. Healthy building strategies include:
Daylight in regularly occupied spaces
Access to rooftop gardens and outdoor spaces
Views of nature
Gym facilities with showers and lockers
Break area with hygiene signage and enhanced cleaning
PPE and sanitation stations
Covered and secure bike parking
Growing Demand for Healthy Buildings: Insights from Global Real Estate Investors
The business case for healthy buildings is growing. Key highlights from a recent study of insights from an international sampling of real estate investors representing USD $5.75 trillion total AUM include:
100% of respondents from Asia, 90% in North America and 85% in Europe expressed current demand for healthy buildings as moderate or strong
87% of survey respondents experienced increased demand for healthy buildings over the past 12 to 24 months, and 92% expect demand to grow over the next three years
89.5% of respondents plan to enhance their company’s health and wellness strategy in the coming year
89% of survey respondents described current demand for healthy buildings as either “moderate” or “strong”, with the strongest demand coming from the Office, Residential, and Retail real estate sectors
These findings demonstrate that the demand for healthy buildings has been on the rise and will persist across the real estate industry globally. So what does this mean for real estate portfolios? It means that now is the time to enhance your company’s health and wellness strategy to increase your real estate portfolio ESG score, and Urbanstrong is here to help.
Enhance your company’s health and wellness strategy and boost your real estate portfolio ESG score with Healthy Building Solutions from Urbanstrong
Circling back to the list of healthy building strategies, Urbanstrong offers several solutions and services that fulfill several of those strategies. Below we outline several ways we can assist your company in enhancing your health and wellness strategy, and thus boosting your real estate portfolio ESG score.
Healthy Building Strategy: Access to rooftop gardens and outdoor spaces
Urbanstrong Solution: Green roof consulting and design services
Urbanstrong works with building owners to create ideal green roof amenity spaces based on unique needs, goals, and budgets. The end result is giving building occupants access to the outdoors without leaving the building.
Green roof with amenity deck located in NYC
Also note - not only are green roofs a healthy building strategy for building occupants, but they also protect your physical building asset, protecting roof membranes and enabling them to last 40 to 60 years longer than a roof membrane not protected by green roof layers. Learn more about how green roofs extend your rooftop’s lifeline here.
Healthy Building Strategy: Biophilia / indoor greenery
Urbanstrong Solution: Green Walls
Biophilia is the innate affinity of human beings with the natural world. Biophilic design is the integration of natural world characteristics into built spaces, such as water, greenery, and natural light. Numerous studies have shown that the implementation of biophilic design results in the promotion of physical, emotional, and intellectual well-being for building occupants.
Preserved moss and folia wall in an office building in Manhattan, NYC
The Urbanstrong team specializes in several green wall solutions, ranging from zero-maintenance preserved moss and folia walls to living dividers and walls. Taking design goals, constraints, and budgets into account, Urbanstrong has a variety of solutions for integrating greenery into indoor and outdoor spaces.
Healthy Building Strategy: Enhanced indoor air quality (IAQ) strategies
Urbanstrong Solution: Living Walls
Certain plants have the ability to remove harmful particulate matter from the air, including but not limited to benzene, formaldehyde, and ammonia. Living walls not only help to enhance indoor air quality, but they also provide a myriad of other well-being benefits.
Urbanstrong specializes in the design, build, and ongoing maintenance of custom living wall solutions. Our team works with clients to understand their needs and then recommends appropriate living wall technologies based on budget and design goals.
Award-winning living wall in an R&D facility in New Jersey, USA
In Conclusion
The numbers don’t lie. Let the healthy building professionals at Urbanstrong help you get ahead of your company’s health and wellness strategy and boost your real estate portfolio ESG score!
