Standard Questionnaire on Sustainability Criteria for Real Estate Investments

At the end of 2023, SSF published an SSF Spotlight publication, titled “Sustainable Real Estate Investments: Insights for Direct Real Estate Investors”,  which provides concrete guidance on how to align investment decisions with specific sustainability objectives and requirements, and how to navigate the diverse landscape of labels, benchmarks, and monitoring tools. Sustainability considerations in real estate investments are not a one-off measure, but rather an ongoing optimisation process for the entire building portfolio through its life cycle.

Investors are increasingly looking for comparable key figures and information on the topic of sustainability. To improve transparency and increase comparability of different investments, SSF publishes the "Standard Questionnaire on Sustainability Criteria for Real Estate Investments". The questionnaire is directed at providers of direct real estate vehicles which regularly receive questionnaires from their clients and investors into direct reale estate funds which look for comparable sustainability information for their investments.

A standardised questionnaire offers advantages for everyone: while investors benefit from increased transparency thanks to better comparability of data and information, real estate investment product providers reduce the time and effort required to answer investor questions - resources that can be used to implement specific sustainability measures.

The questionnaire covers the following topics:

• ESG Information
  • 1. General Information
  • 2. Company level ESG-Memberships & Signatories
  • 3. ESG Organisation & Resources
  • 4. ESG Strategy / Sustainable Investment Approach of the Portfolio
  • 5. ESG-Rating, Transparency & Reporting of the Portfolio
  • 6. Methodological Parameters of Environmental Indicators
  • 7. Building Certifications
• Environmental Indicators
  • 8. Environmental indicators (based on AMAS self-regulation / KGAST recommendation)

SSF plans to regularly update the Standard Questionnaire based on feedback from its network. If you have any questions or feedback on the questionnaire, please contact Hendrik Kimmerle (hendrik.kimmerle@sustainablefinance.ch).

SSF would like to thank the industry professionals from the real estate investment companies AXA Investment Managers Schweiz AG, Pensimo, Schroder Investment Management (Switzerland) AG, Swiss Finance & Property Group AG, Swiss Life Asset Management AG, Swiss Prime Site AG, and UBS Fund Management (Switzerland) AG who have joined forces in the "Swiss Sustainable Real Estate Group" (SSREG) to develop a standard questionnaire that provides the most important information on sustainability and ESG (environmental, social, governance) for direct real estate investment products in as standardised a way as possible, making it easier for investors and advisors to compare. The questionnaire was also supported by the indirect investors Maerki Baumann & Co. AG and Zürcher Kantonalbank. The first questionnaire was launched in 2022 and a revised version of it is now published by SSF as the "Standard Questionnaire on Sustainability Criteria of Real Estate Investments".