Publications

This report provides real estate practitioners and investors support in understanding the physical risks arising from climate change with a specific focus on how these risks affect commercial real estate asset values and prices. It also offers recommendations for next steps by market actors, policy makers and researchers connected with commercial real estate to guide future cross-sector engagement and research.

The report, authored by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and commissioned by PRI, UNEP FI and The Generation Foundation, provides ground-breaking legal analysis on the extent to which legal frameworks enable investors to consider impact in their activities across 11 jurisdictions: the EU, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands, UK and the US.

Several milestones in sustainable finance are highlighted in our overview of UNEP FI’s work during the period from July 2019 to December 2020, which provides a summary of initiatives that are helping to transform the financial sector.

The UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance recommends strengthening of current carbon-pricing instruments and regulations across global economy. Explicit mechanisms for escalating binding carbon-price floor and ceiling are detailed in this paper, delivered to G7 and G20 policymakers.

The Financial Sector Guide for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is geared towards all financial institutions, stakeholders and partners, aims to mobilise financial institutions to ensure a nature positive world, by fostering better understanding of nature’s importance for the financial sector, providing insight on the CBD process. The guide is the first of its kind between the CBD and partner organizations, and the financial sector.

The Guidance on Biodiversity Target Setting is designed for PRB signatories, allowing banks to take a systematic approach to setting and achieving biodiversity targets. The guidance presents three real-life case studies, and includes a detailed how-to guide and has been developed by 30 PRB signatories, UNEP FI, UNEP-WCMC and the Science-based Targets Network (SBTN). 

The Real Estate Impact Analysis Tool was developed to enable financial institutions to holistically identify and assess the impacts associated with real estate investments and portfolios. There are multiple use cases for this kind of analysis, including: decision-making and due diligence in the context of asset acquisition; fund/portfolio review and management; impact target-setting as well as impact & SDG reporting.

Based on the market-first practical guidance for financial institutions, Turning the Tide, UNEP FI’s recommended exclusions list for a sustainable blue economy provides financial institutions with an overview of activities to exclude from financing due to their damaging impact on the ocean and high risk.

The Investment Portfolio Impact Analysis Tool was developed to enable financial institutions to holistically identify and assess the impacts associated with their…

UNEP FI’s Property Working Group has partnered with the Center for Active Design and BentallGreenOak (BGO) to conduct the largest health and wellness study of global real estate investment managers.