On 12 October 2022 more than 150 leaders from the European real estate industry met for the C Change Summit. The event was organised by the Urban Land Institute (UL!) to launch a consultation draft of proposed guidelines for the measurement, disclosure and reporting of climate-change transition risk at an asset level.
In her opening remarks, Lisette Van Doom, CEO of UL! Europe, highlighted real estate's importance to wider decarbonisation efforts. She reminded the audience that the built environment is responsible for almost 40 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions and upwards of 70 percent of emissions in Europe's cities. Although she praised the decarbonisation efforts of many parts of the real estate industry, Van Doom argued that, overall, the sector was failing to deliver the change required, exposing the industry to meaningful transition risks.
Van Doom also suggested there may be a "decarbonisation bubble" in real estate pricing, which could be defl