Fiera Real Estate UK (“FRE UK”), on behalf of the Fiera Real Estate Long Income Fund UK (“FRELIF UK”), has today published its net zero carbon pathway which sets out the actions required to achieve FRELIF UK’s objective of becoming net zero carbon in a cost effective and economically viable way by 2035. The pathway is one of the most ambitious for long income funds in the UK market and is reflective of the significant progress already made in this key area.
As with many other long income funds, FRELIF UK has limited control over the operation of its buildings and the emissions associated with them due to the long nature of the FRI leases delegating full operational responsibility to the tenants. As a result, FRE UK, as Portfolio Manager, has worked closely and diligently with its occupiers, managing agents, external NZC specialist partner Carbon Intelligence and other key stake holders in order to lay the foundation stone to achieving this most important of targets.
FRELIF UK’s journey to net zero started in 2019 and to better understand the overall emissions related to the portfolio, the Fund has been engaging with its occupiers over the past few years to collect energy and emissions data from the buildings.
In 2021, the Fund achieved an 85% tenant energy data collection vs the 75% target set. This ambitious target, some way ahead of the wider UK market, was achieved through tenant ESG focus groups, performance reports and automated data harvesting to track energy consumption and building performance. This data has been fundamental to the process of defining and modelling the Fund’s pathway to net zero by 2035.
Jessica Pilz, Global Head of ESG at FRE commented, “Our net zero carbon pathway makes a clear commitment to achieving net zero on our long income fund portfolio by 2035. We believe we have a crucial part to play in mitigating climate risk across real estate as well as future-proofing our investments. We will continue to work closely with our tenants and managing agents to ensure we achieve this goal.”
Rupert Sheldon, Fund Manager of FRELIF commented “The journey to NZC for any fund is about identifying and delivering on ambitious but realistic and economically viable goals. In setting our target for 2035 we are building on a strong and established base and are proud to be 15 years ahead of the Paris Agreement and UK Government targets. We will continue to work tirelessly to advance our transition to a low-carbon world.”