Top tips for streamlining your reporting and evidencing delivery

At the end of last year, we again surveyed our network of real estate professionals. One of the key things we noticed was the continued shift in priorities from setting targets to evidencing delivery against them.

As investors and stakeholders demand regular, verifiable data on climate projects, and disclosure and anti-greenwashing expectations rise, real estate businesses are heavily focusing on the accurate reporting and sharing of data. In this article, Verco experts explore how to streamline your processes, protect your reputation, and build confidence in your data to stay ahead of this trend.

The issue: It’s hard to keep track of sustainability data and use it efficiently for disclosures

According to Service Director Tilly Shaw, ‘Good ESG data and reporting are not just compliance tools – they drive financial performance, risk mitigation and long-term resilience in real estate portfolios.’ Indeed, transparent ESG data attracts institutional investors, enables green financing, and can lower borrowing costs. But when data is collected in a variety of ways by a variety of different platforms, it can be tricky to find the specifics you need to evidence or disclose your performance, let alone access dynamic views that allow you to form the most useful reports.

The solution: Seek specialist support, develop a reporting programme, and stick to it

A huge blocker to developing an efficient reporting programme is lack of internal knowledge or capacity. Therefore, to meet compliance requirements and organise your sustainability data, it is usually most effective to bring in external subject-matter specialists. They can draw your data together in ways that meet both your specific reporting needs and wider industry standards, and work with teams across the business to develop a reporting programme that works for everyone. Training can be conducted on how to use it, then the process can run on its own.

An example of progress: Cadogan Estates

When Cadogan Estates needed support with managing their ESG data collection, data validation and analysis, we mobilised all relevant environmental data from Cadogan’s portfolios onto one reporting platform, where it can all be viewed together or split out from asset to unit level. This vastly reduced the effort and time spent gathering data from multiple sources and comparing or combining it manually. The systems and calculations are now set out in a methodology which is routinely updated to remain aligned to carbon accounting best practice and help speed up the process of getting data assured.

Read the case study

Resources to help you

Listen to a podcast on how to start and streamline your ESG reporting journey here.

Browse our ESG data and reporting services here.

The issue: It's difficult for an organisation to know, and prove, that its data is reliable

The reliability of an asset’s climate action plan and progress affects its competitiveness in the modern market, and on the flip side, nobody wants to be accused of greenwashing. It's never been more important that all data disclosed is both sound and verifiable. As a result, over the last few years, the real estate sector has seen a significant rise in requests for third party data verification. The need for proof of data accuracy is growing.

The solution: Consider third party assurance

Against this backdrop, sustainability assurance has emerged. The practice of assessing an organisation’s data against a set standard, and producing an independent conclusion, derives from financial auditing but has expanded into ESG. Successfully completing an assurance assessment against sustainability standards such as ISAE 3000, ISAE 3410, AA1000 or ISSA 5000 helps you shape internal governance and controls and make data-backed decisions, safe in the knowledge that you are not risking investment on unreliable information.

An example of progress: Grosvenor Rural Estates

As part of our work with Grosvenor Rural Estates, we helped them prepare for a positive assurance cycle. To do this, we reviewed their methodologies and procedures to ensure that they were adequately documented. We also engaged with data collectors and inventory preparers to identify and address any foreseeable risks that would have a material effect on the formal assurance process. We performed a range of checks against the methodologies, processes, data and modelling outputs, then presented Grosvenor with a thorough and conclusive findings and recommendations report, complete with actions to take.

Read the case study

Resources to help you

Are you ready for a full assurance assessment? If not, pre-assurance might be for you. Find out more about that here.

If you do believe you’re ready, browse our service document to find out how we can help you with assurance here.

Look out for more articles in this series

This article is part of a series exploring the valuable data we collected in our Climate Action in Real Estate report, so keep an eye on our website and social media for the latest updates. Here are the other articles in the series: