Strategic Sustainability Management for Genesta

The building sector is responsible for 40% of annual global CO² emissions. To align with the 1.5 degrees pathway of the Paris Agreement, this number needs to be reduced drastically. Thus, investing in buildings also entails the responsibility to reduce the carbon footprint of the acquired property.

Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and operating across the Nordics, Genesta must also comply with EU-wide regulations, such as the EU Taxonomy and SFDR, which include the responsibility to inform their investors of the sustainability of their investments.

Genesta reached out to Ramboll to get help in aligning with the EU regulations and work towards their vision to transform real estate assets in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner.

To achieve this, Ramboll established two long-term investment objectives for Genesta’s funds: 1) Compliance with the EU Taxonomy and 2) Transformation of their properties into net-zero carbon buildings based on the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

This resulted in various projects ranging from the development of ESG fund policies to concrete action plans to decarbonise Genesta’s portfolio.

For a business to become truly sustainable, all relevant business areas must be addressed in a holistic approach. Therefore, we defined what strategic sustainability management would entail for Genesta and summarised the results as follows:

• Align with the EU regulations (EU Taxonomy incl. Minimum Safeguards and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR))
• Establish carbon reduction pathways that are aligned with the 1.5 degrees target by conducting energy audits and using the Carbon Real Estate Risk Monitor (CRREM) tool
• Define potential red flags and an ESG Due Diligence Policy for the acquisition of new buildings
• Develop a sustainability risk management system, which e. g. addresses climate risks according to the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework
• Take responsibility for the annual sustainability reporting and quarterly investment reports to ensure transparency towards all stakeholder groups

To realise these objectives, we established an ongoing process in which two of our experts took the role of in-house ESG managers to continuously support Genesta and have them benefit from Ramboll’s global pool of experts for further consultation on technical, economic, and legal sustainability matters.