This year, GRESB—the global ESG benchmark for real estate—has introduced important changes aimed at making data more accurate, sector-specific, and, ultimately, more useful for everyone, especially building owners and operators. Whether you’re managing a single property or a portfolio, understanding these updates helps you stay ahead of regulations, investor expectations, and industry shifts.
Let’s break it down.
1 Energy Efficiency: Recognition for Maintaining Efficiency
High-performing buildings can earn credit simply for staying efficient.
Properties that are already operating efficiently will receive recognition even if they do not show year-over-year (Like-for-Like) improvement, addressing the challenge that top performers have limited room for further gains. If your asset meets GRESB’s new operational efficiency benchmark, you’ll be rewarded—even if your energy use doesn’t drop further. Assets not meeting operational efficiency criteria continue with the traditional Like-for-Like scoring method.
This means continuous monitoring and maintaining best practices in energy management can yield scoring benefits, not just improvements. Managers may need to implement or maintain energy management systems and document performance rigorously.
2. Renewable Energy: Time to Get Specific
GRESB now asks for much more detailed data on renewable energy at the asset level.
Expanded data collection aligned with RE100 guidance requires participants to provide detailed, verifiable data on renewable energy procurement at the asset level: how it’s bought, who buys it, and whether it’s actually consumed on-site.
The goal is to improve the quality and credibility of renewable energy reporting, informing future scoring changes.
This means coordinating with energy suppliers and possibly tenants to collect accurate data on renewable energy use and certificates. Although this is unscored in 2025, it sets the stage for future scoring and investor scrutiny.
3. Embodied Carbon: New Reporting Criteria
There are new criteria for embodied carbon emissions reporting, primarily targeting development projects.
This is currently an unscored test to allow participants to prepare for future scoring impacts. Additional data submissions are required to anticipate evolving industry expectations on carbon footprinting. If you’re planning new developments, major retrofits, or tenant fit-outs, GRESB encourages you to start tracking embodied carbon early by running Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) that estimate the total carbon impact of your materials and construction choices.
4. Biodiversity: Adding Nature into the ESG Picture
A new unscored indicator has been added for biodiversity and nature-related strategies.
The indicator is aligned with the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework and aims to capture how buildings interact with the natural environment.
Even for urban projects, it’s worth looking at how your site design, landscaping, or lighting might impact local ecosystems. GRESB is signaling that nature-related risks are becoming part of ESG reporting, so it’s a good time to start paying attention.
5. Employee Safety: Broader Focus on Workplace Health
Previously, there were two safety metrics. Now, it’s four.
To receive full points, participants now need to report on all four safety metrics, each carrying updated weight in the overall score.
- Workstation checks
- Absentee rates
- Injury rates
- Lost day rates
This encourages a more complete view of employee health and safety across your operations. If you don’t already track these indicators, now is the time to build systems that can reliably capture and report this data.
6. Fit-Out and Refurbishment: Tracking Environmental Impact
How you manage upgrades, renovations, and interior work is about to impact your GRESB score.
Upgrades, renovations, and fit-outs often involve materials and processes that carry a hidden environmental cost. The new GRESB section looks at how these activities are managed—how much waste they generate, what materials are used, and how decisions are made.
Tracking this kind of information over time helps paint a fuller picture of a building’s sustainability story. It can also make future reporting easier and show that sustainability is built into every stage.
7. Green Leases: Define Who Controls What
GRESB now looks closely at green lease clauses—specifically who controls each part of the building.
Building managers must clearly identify landlord-controlled vs. tenant-controlled areas within each building. Even if tenants pay energy bills, if the landlord (or building manager) controls efficiency upgrades or policies, that area is landlord-controlled and must be reported accordingly. This distinction affects how energy, water, waste, and GHG emissions data are reported and managed.
GRESB encourages granular tracking—ideally down to individual tenant spaces and base building systems. The more you know, the better you’ll perform when this becomes scored in 2026.
8. Residential Module: Custom Metrics for Housing
For the first time, residential buildings have their own tailored module.
List metrics?
This is a big step forward. Residential projects are no longer being squeezed into commercial frameworks. The new module enables fairer comparisons, more relevant questions, and better alignment with the real needs of tenants and communities.
9. Less Reporting Burden
Some indicators have been retired to simplify reporting.
Items like “Personnel Responsible for ESG” and “Employee Engagement” are gone. Also, validation of climate-related risks has been simplified. Less time spent on irrelevant data. More focus on what truly drives performance.
10. Improved Guidance and Resources
The 2025 Reference Guide is more structured and user-friendly.
New appendices address critical topics like Data Sharing & Confidentiality and provide an overview of support resources. Validation guidance has been enhanced with examples to clarify evidence requirements for systematic processes and entity-level outcomes.
What This Means Going Forward
The 2025 GRESB updates show a clear shift toward more precise, relevant, and sector-specific ESG reporting. The new focus on fit-outs, green leases, and residential-specific metrics means building owners need to think more holistically about how every part of their property impacts the environment and occupants. At the same time, some reporting burdens have been eased, and guidance has improved, making it easier to focus on what truly drives performance and value.
One of the most important takeaways is the growing need to keep a close, ongoing eye on your building’s performance. With GRESB rewarding continuous performance—not just yearly improvements—it’s becoming essential for maintaining and improving ESG scores. The recent approval of the PERFORM program as an official assurance scheme by GRESB further highlights this trend.
If you want to better understand the 2025 GRESB updates or learn how to improve your building’s sustainability performance, don’t hesitate to contact our engineering team—we’re here to help you navigate these changes and achieve your goals.
Appreciation to Stella Lu (Project Director, Engineering) and Chang Yang (Project Engineer) for their valuable contributions to this review of the 2025 GRESB updates.
