October 3, 2023
Fiera Capital Corporation (“Fiera Capital” or the “Company”) (TSX: FSZ), a leading independent asset management firm with approximately USD124.1 billion in AUM as at 30th June 2023, is delighted to announce that it has received Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (“GRESB”) Green Star status on all its live real estate and infrastructure strategies managed by Fiera Real Estate and Fiera Infrastructure, with all core and value-add Canadian and UK real estate strategies increasing their scores from 2022.
The UK Long Income Strategy and Canadian Industrial Strategy in particular saw strong improvement in scores, 7% and 13% respectively. In addition, the UK value-add real estate strategies all achieved four out of five stars, with the Canadian Industrial Strategy II achieving a score of 83 out of 100 in its first year of submission. Scores are comprised of management and performance elements which are evaluated by a series of questions relating to how a manager integrates ESG into their investment processes, alongside yearly performance.
These increases in scores reflect the commitment the Company’s real estate business has made to advancing the integration of ESG within the investment decisions and processes. In Canada, these increases can be attributed to the introduction of a Sustainable Design Brief, commitments to achieving net-zero carbon by 2040, and the roll out of electricity and water meters at the property level, allowing for real time collection and reporting of performance data.
In the UK, the improvement in scores is largely due to improvements in data monitoring and verification, as well as more detailed risk assessments across the portfolio, including net-zero carbon audits, as well as physical climate risk and biodiversity baseline assessments.
Fiera Infrastructure’s strategy achieved exemplar scores of 86 and 90 on its Canadian and non-Canadian investment vehicles, respectively, with the non-Canadian investment vehicle achieving the accolade of four stars. These scores reflect the efforts of the Fiera Infrastructure team to continue to instill best practices into each of the underlying investments and ensure consistency across its portfolio companies. This ongoing engagement with each investment continues to yield positive results, with both the Canadian and non-Canadian investment vehicles seeing an average increase in asset score of 13% and 19%, respectively.
Jessica Pilz, Head of Sustainable Investing for Fiera Capital Private Markets, commented, “These stellar results are testament to the commitment shown toward sustainable investing across the whole of Fiera Capital. Without dedicated top-down commitment, an ESG strategy is only good on paper. We place ESG considerations at the heart of everything we do, and so we are delighted that this has been reflected in our 2023 scores.”