Demand for sustainable assets keeps expanding relentlessly. In the real estate market, a progressive decarbonisation of portfolios is happening, and an increasing percentage of assets have some sort of environmental labelling. Yet, at the same time, most investable stock does not comply with the criteria required by investors and tenants. It falls short of upcoming regulations and targets regarding energy efficiency.

Where do we go? That’s the question paramount on many institutional investors’ minds these days. Oil and related energy costs may have peaked, signalling a potential end to the latest inflation cycle. The economy has been slowing but still appears to remain relatively strong and sustainable. But the massive US federal debt that’s been run up and is now being added to via the funding of recently enacted federal programmes remains a concern.

Two recent virtual roundtables with institutional investors, consultants and investment managers were held by Institutional Real Estate, Inc, on issues related to ESG investing as well as the outlook for property investment in South Korea. The in-depth discussions were moderated by Reno Sio, managing director, Asia Pacific, at IREI.

A large majority of investors investing in Hong Kong are drawn to sustainable funds (88 percent), primarily for environmental concerns, although they also want to exert influence in relation to societal issues, according to the Schroders Global Investor Study 2022.

M&G Real Estate has acquired Minato Mirai Center Building (pictured), a prime-grade office building in Yokohama, Japan, for more than ¥100 billion (US$700 million) on behalf of its M&G Asia Property Fund. The state-of-the-art building is now the largest asset in the fund and is the latest in a series of M&G deals in Japan.