Deepki, which offers an ESG data intelligence platform for the commercial real estate sector, has released the latest findings of its annual ESG Index.

One year on from the launch of the Index, which represents the first publicly available European benchmark measuring real estate’s environmental performance using real data, the latest Index gives values for the average, top performing 30% and top performing 15% in terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions for different typologies across the real estate sector in the UK, France, Germany, Benelux, Italy and Spain, as well as Europe as a whole, thereby defining which investments are sustainable according to the EU Taxonomy.

In order to redirect investment flow in line with the 2050 net zero target, the European Commission has detailed certain performance criteria in the EU Taxonomy. According to these criteria, buildings in the top 15% of the national or regional building stock in terms of primary energy intensity will be considered sustainable investments and serve as a benchmark for the entire sector.

The newly published Index shows that the evolution of Europe’s commercial real estate sector’s ESG performance varies from year to year depending on the typology, with housing, offices, healthcare and retail seeing a drop in final energy consumption, in contrast to hotels, which have increased, while logistics remains stable.

Of the five sectors analysed across Europe, the hotel sector was the only one to see an increase in terms of final energy consumption. This can be attributed to a rise in occupation, as the hospitality industry recovers from the impact of Covid-19, reflecting an evolution in terms of usage not necessarily tied to energy efficiency.