Whether you are persuaded by extreme weather conditions, or the data to emerge from COP 26, there should be nobody in any doubt about the importance of carbon emissions, climate change and, to be frank, the future of the planet.

There is certainly evidence that financial markets have taken note. According to BloombergNEF, the global issuances of sustainable debt, including green bonds and sustainability-linked loans, spiked 78 percent in 2019 to $465 billion (€415 billion), while recent estimates suggest that ESG assets rose by nearly a third between 2016 and 2020 to $35 trillion (€31 trillion), according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). As frameworks for implementing and understanding appropriate ESG measures become ever more formalised and widely adopted, it is increasingly clear that green is the new black.

For those of us in property, this is not a moment too soon — real estate has one of the highest carbon footprints going, contributing more