Stoneweg European Reit outperforms global peers in sustainability rankings: report
[SINGAPORE] Mainboard-listed Stoneweg European Real Estate Investment Trust (Sert) bagged an above-average overall score and a four-star rating in a widely recognised environmental, social and governance (ESG) benchmarking framework for property investment.
The trust's manager announced the release of its 2024 sustainability report last Thursday (May 29). The report details its progress across key ESG metrics with two years of externally assured performance data from 2023 and 2024.
This marks Sert's seventh consecutive year of participating in the GRESB Real Estate Assessment, with GRESB seen as the global standard for listed property companies, private funds, developers and direct real estate investors.
The benchmark covers 15 sectors across 80 markets, with a 15 per cent increase in participation from Asia.
Last year, 2,223 participants submitted ESG data through GRESB, representing US$7 trillion in gross asset value.
Despite methodology changes that bumped down many participants' scores, the trust retained its four-star rating and secured an overall score that is 9 per cent above the global average, said the more than 100-page report.
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The trust earned full marks in the performance aspects of targets as well as data monitoring and review, but did the worst in the areas of waste (50.2), water (59.4) and energy (62.6).
Under the five management categories, Sert received a perfect score in leadership, policies, reporting and stakeholder engagement, but lagged in risk management (86.8).
Said the manager's chief executive officer and executive director Simon Garing: 'ESG is no longer a nice-to-have. It is part of how we access capital, attract tenants, meet regulatory expectations and build long-term value.'
He added that the manager's ambition for net zero operational carbon emissions by 2040 guides its investments, management and engagement.
'Multiple years of comparable portfolio environmental data give us better insight, and with our ESG automated artificial intelligence-powered system Deepki roll-out fully implemented, we're accelerating progress in planning and implementing consumption and emissions reduction solutions,' concluded Garing.
Other environmental achievements listed in the report include a 25.3 per cent decrease in waste intensity since 2019; a 24.9 per cent drop in absolute greenhouse gas emissions intensity since 2019; an 11 per cent fall in absolute water intensity year-on-year in 2024; as well as a 3.9 per cent dip in absolute energy intensity since 2019.
Under the social/stakeholders arm, each employee in 2024 received some 22.6 training hours, exceeding its set target of 20 hours.
Around 36 per cent of its employees are female. In 2023, women represented 25 per cent of executive management and 50 per cent of senior management.
On the governance front, Sert maintained a clean compliance record and remained in the top 10 of the Singapore Governance and Transparency Index for the fifth consecutive year.
The trust also maintained its A- rating in the 2024 GRESB Public Disclosure Assessment, bagging a perfect score and ranking first out of five in its mixed office/industrial peer group, said the report.
The release noted that the trust's manager raised 500 million euros (S$732.6 million) via a senior unsecured green bond issued under Sert's green financing framework in 2024. The transaction was more than four times oversubscribed and attracted over 100 institutional investors, it added.
Sert's manager will continue to focus on the fundamentals of managing risk, supporting tenant needs, enhancing asset performance and acting responsibly on climate and govenrance, said the report.
Sert currently has about 86 per cent exposure to Western Europe and about 56 per cent to the light industrial/logistics sector, where it has a medium-term goal of increasing exposure to at least a vast majority weighting.
The trust's portfolio is valued at 2.2 billion euros and comprises more than 100 predominantly freehold properties in or close to major gateway cities in the Netherlands, Italy, France, Poland, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
Sert's portfolio spans a total lettable area of around 1.7 million sq m, and serves more than 800 tenant-customers.
Its manager is part of SWI Group, an alternative investment platform specialising in real estate, data centres, credit and the financial sectors.
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