Guidance for Investor Members
GRESB provides essential data, tools, and guidance to support constructive engagement between investors and managers. By leveraging these resources, investors can drive productive conversations, increase transparency about investment characteristics, and, ultimately, improve risk-adjusted investment returns.
What is GRESB?
A strategic partner for sustainable investment
Approximately 150 institutional and financial investors with USD 53 trillion in assets under management rely on GRESB to inform their decisions. In 2025, GRESB Participants continued to demonstrate strong commitment to responsible investing. In real estate, 1,002 fund managers—including 84 new participants—submitted 2,382 assessments, with 239 entities joining the inaugural Residential Component. On the infrastructure side, 186 managers (including 19 newcomers) completed 805 assessments across the Fund, Asset, and Development Asset Assessments, underscoring the industry’s resilience and dedication to advancing sustainability performance.
Each year, the GRESB Standards evolve to better reflect the needs and priorities of the real assets investment community. This work is driven by investors and other industry stakeholders who serve as volunteer leaders of the non-profit GRESB Foundation.
Road Ahead for 2026
The real estate and infrastructure industries have experienced different unprecedented conditions over the last year. For instance, slower capital flow and uncertainty in regulations. To promote sustainability in real assets, GRESB has set a list of priorities when looking ahead of 2026.
GRESB participation and financial performance
Investors are increasingly recognizing the potential impact of responsible investment practices on financial performance. Recent studies across Europe, Asia Pacific, and the US show that GRESB participation is positively correlated with higher total returns and lower volatility.
For example, a study found that GRESB reporting is associated with a 0.35% increase in an ODCE fund’s total quarterly return, compared to a mean quarterly return of 1.94%. Additionally, each one-point increase in GRESB scoring corresponds to a 0.09% increase in quarterly returns—equivalent to a 0.36% annualized boost (Devine, Sanderford & Wang, 2022).
Better understand GRESB Scores and their implications
Scores and star ratings alone do not capture the full picture of a fund's performance or the commitments made over the years. We encourage GRESB Investor Members not to use these as the sole criterion for investment decisions, and instead to read the full Benchmark Report in detail.
We invite you to deepen your understanding of the history, methodology, and future direction of GRESB Scores in the GRESB Scoring Insights series, where Chief Innovation Officer Chris Pyke breaks down what GRESB Scores signify and how they influence sustainability and investment outcomes. Explore:
How GRESB Scores act as a mechanism for simplification, differentiation, and flexibility
What a score means based on the GRESB Standard itself and how it correlates to financial returns
The comparability of GRESB Scores over time
Ask your managers to participate
By encouraging your managers to participate in GRESB, you will be able to maximize your portfolio coverage for sustainability data, drawing more meaningful benchmark comparisons and portfolio insights.
You can send a customized letter to your managers requesting participation in the GRESB Assessments.
Looking to increase your sustainability data coverage?
GRESB data and benchmarks cover more than 2,200 real estate funds and 880 infrastructure funds and assets.
By encouraging your managers to participate in GRESB, you will be able to maximize your portfolio coverage for sustainability data, drawing more meaningful benchmark comparisons and portfolio insights. You can share this webpage with your managers to help them understand why you want them to participate in GRESB.
Get more from your GRESB data
As a GRESB Investor Member, you have access to a full range of data and analytics that can unlock a new level of insights into your investments.

Benchmark the sustainability performance of your portfolios, providing insights into environmental impact, strategy alignment, and overall efficiency. By comparing portfolios against custom benchmarks, you can identify top performers, address under-performers, and enhance sustainability reporting and stakeholder communication.
GRESB Assessment Timeline
When is the best time to engage with your managers?
Real estate and infrastructure managers, companies, and asset owners and operators submit their assessment data to GRESB on an annual basis. The GRESB Assessments open in April and submissions are accepted until the end of June, with preliminary and final results made available in September and October, respectively. See all of the key dates here.
1 April - 1 July: GRESB Portal opens for the 2026 GRESB Assessments
July - August: GRESB's validation, scoring and benchmarking
1 September: Launch of 2026 GRESB Assessment preliminary results for Participants only
1 - 15 September: Assessment Correction
1 October: Launch of 2026 GRESB Assessment official results for Participants and Investors.
October - December: Public events
Frequently Asked Questions
Real Estate FAQ
Infrastructure FAQ
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