Real estate fund managers and investors are squaring up to tackle twin threats of climate change and an affordability crisis in housing, which they say could create sea change in the real estate investment world, according to a new whitepaper by SEI.

Saffery Champness Fund Services Limited has advised True North Real Estate Partners (TNREP) on the creation and launch of its first fund, focusing on positive environmental impact through re-forestation. 

Nikkei Inc has launched a new green real estate index, the “Nikkei ESG-REIT Index” which incorporates environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.
 

M&G Real Estate, a global financial solutions provider for real estate investors, is accelerating its aim of reducing net carbon emissions to zero across its assets under management by 2050 after delivering target-beating energy cuts.

ESG investing continues to gain momentum and prominence among global institutional investors as they increasingly look to benchmark not only the performance of funds in their portfolios but the impact they have on the world.

Italian real estate investment, development and management company COIMA's ESG City Impact Fund, the first urban regeneration ESG fund to be launched in Italy, has secured equity commitments of about EUR400 million from cornerstone investors, including Italian institutional investors Cassa Forense (pension fund of lawyers), Inarcassa (pension fund of architects) and Cassa Commercialisti (pension fund of chartered accountants). 

Allianz Real Estate, acting on behalf of several Allianz group companies, has provided EUR200 million in financing to a consortium of investors for the development of Arboretum, the first office campus in the Paris region to be constructed primarily from wood and also the largest solid-wood office development in Europe. 

Legal & General is to make all of its new housing stock operational net zero carbon enabled by 2030. This will be implemented in a phased approach across all homes invested in or built by Legal & General Group including: Build to Rent, Build to Sell, later living and affordable housing.

Niche homebuilder Artisan Real Estate has launched an ambitious new blueprint for sustainable development, responding to the changing requirements of local people and communities in a post-Covid world.

All the investment management activities of the Civitas Group have been brought together under the new name of Civitas Investment Management Limited.