Assessment Structure & Scope
About the Assessments
The GRESB Infrastructure Assessments are the global standard for sustainability benchmarking and reporting for institutional investors, fund managers, infrastructure companies, and asset managers operating in the infrastructure sector. The methodology is consistent across different regions, investment vehicles, and asset types, aligning with international reporting frameworks such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).
There are three complementary GRESB Infrastructure Assessments:
Infrastructure Fund Assessment
Infrastructure Asset Assessment
Infrastructure Development Asset Assessment
GRESB also offers two SFDR Infrastructure Assessments (SFDR Asset & SFDR Fund) to support infrastructure participants in meeting their SFDR disclosure requirements.
All assessments cover the full breadth of infrastructure sectors, including but not limited to data infrastructure, energy and water resources, environmental services, network utilities, power generation except renewables (x‑renewables), renewable power, social infrastructure, and transport.
Which assessment should I complete?
Listed infrastructure companies and private infrastructure asset operators.
Management + Performance + NZIF Module
Greenfield/pre-operational infrastructure assets or infrastructure companies that invest in greenfield/pre-operational assets
Development
The Infrastructure Assessment output depends on a participant's component selection, which is entirely under their discretion.
Please refer to the "Who should participate" sections below for details on the scope of each assessment and its associated component(s).
Development Asset Assessment
What is the Development Asset Assessment, and how is it structured?
The Infrastructure Development Asset Assessment consists of an ‘Entity and Reporting Characteristics’ section and a Development Component that assesses management as well as performance information.
The Development Component consists of 40 indicators across 12 aspects (i.e., topics):
Leadership
Policies
Reporting
Risk Management
Stakeholder Engagement
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Materials
Site Selection
Employees
Contractors
Certifications
Who should participate?
Precisely what constitutes an infrastructure asset is typically defined by investors at the level of the investable entity.
These assets (investable entities) may comprise single or multiple facilities. Either type of asset may participate in the Development Asset Assessment; however, reporting as a single facility provides the best basis for benchmark comparisons and is, therefore, recommended.
Different approaches to participation are explained in the following sections. Please note that these are only illustrative examples, and other scenarios are also possible.
Single-Facility Assets
Single-facility assets undertake their activities at a single facility or across a single facility network. These entities may be large and complex or small and narrowly focused. The full description of the facility and business activities should be expressed in the Entity & Reporting Characteristics section of the asset assessment.
Examples of single‑facility assets include:
A provider of water and wastewater services in a single network is under development
An airport under development
An offshore wind farm under development
Multi-Facility Assets
In some cases, the asset’s activities may be spread across several facilities—GRESB considers this to be a multi‑facility asset. A multi‑facility asset has the option to report:
Separately for each facility using multiple development asset assessments
As a group using a single development asset assessment
Completing multiple assessments allows comparisons between assets and is strongly encouraged, whilst a single assessment may take less time if the relevant data is more readily available at the aggregated asset level.
Examples of multi‑facility assets include:
An entity that operates several toll roads under development simultaneously
An entity that owns a portfolio of small wind farms under development
An entity that is developing a collection of distributed-scale solar projects
If a participant elects to report on multiple facilities in a single development asset assessment, then it is strongly recommended that this aggregation be kept at a single sector and country combination; otherwise, peer group comparisons are likely to be far less specific and useful.
For example, a multi-facility asset that consists of on-shore wind farms under development in the UK can be compared to other UK wind farms under development. In contrast, an asset with wind and solar farms in various European countries will likely fall into a peer group of renewable energy in Europe, which is far less useful for comparisons. Multi-facility assets that operate as a single entity should have centralized management and aggregated performance data. See “Sector and Geography” (RC3) in the Entity and Reporting Characteristics Aspect for more details.
How are E, S, and G represented in the assessment?
Each indicator is allocated to one of the three sustainability dimensions (E‑ environmental; S‑ social; G‑ governance):
E – indicators related to actions and efficiency measures undertaken to monitor and decrease the environmental footprint of the asset;
S – indicators related to the entity’s relationship with and impact on its stakeholders and the direct social impact of its activities
G – indicators related to the governance of sustainability, policies and procedures, and approach to sustainability at the entity or organization level.
Participants may use the GRESB Materiality and Scoring Tool to identify the weight of E, S, and G issues based on their specific asset characteristics. See the ‘Materiality in the Asset Assessment’ section of the introduction for more information about materiality.
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