Real estate has tech requirements. ESG has set goals. But are the two uniting and bringing meaning to commercial property?
In June 2022 Elon Musk tweeted, “ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors” to which a Forbes article responded “it is where the economy and markets are going. Ignore it at your own peril.”
And this isn’t from just a commercial and investment level -seismic shifts in the future of work over the last few years have seen work cultures and values change for everyone from c-suite down to on the ground. So how can we succinctly and collaboratively integrate tech strategies with ESG policy to deliver a more rounded value to commercial real estate?
Commercial Real Estate’s BFFs - Data and ESG
All buildings need tech whether that’s to measure energy output, air quality, ensure safety or assess CX. And all buildings, through implementing this tech, generate data. ESG is based in data and so et voilà! Tech and ESG = best buddies.
Data allows us to benchmark ourselves, shows us the gaps, and encourages us to strive harder to reach ESG goals. It also enables us to have a full view of what a building is doing. And in all honesty, buildings are very far behind. By bringing together tech strategies and ESG and not approaching them as standalone areas of improvement (which happens all too often), we can ensure commercial real estate evolves and has a positive impact on the planet and society.
Education, Education, Education
You can make a building as high spec as you want but if you don’t communicate how to optimise it, what’s the point? You’ve shelled out thousands on tech that’s gradually gathering digital dust, is hindering your ESG strategy, and frustrating tenants and facilities teams.
Education and consultation from the ground up is absolutely key to successfully implementing tech into a building. Otherwise, how can abuilding perform properly and reach ESG targets?
As experts in ESG, tech and commercial real estate, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to help people make better life choices overall.
Our responsibility as experts
But it goes further than this. Society’s consumerist behaviour and attitudes, alongside language full of jargon, is one of the biggest blockages to the successful adoption of tech in real estate and beyond. People don’t like to be told what to do and certainly don’t make a change because someone has told them. They make a change because someone educated them and enabled them to go on a journey to make a change themselves. As experts in ESG, tech and commercial real estate, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to help people make better life choices overall.
We’re tech reliant, not tech savvy
We live in a tech driven world which can, if we fully allow it, enable us to build strong resilient communities, and live lives that ensure the future of the planet.
The future of tech real estate is ultimately automation and the removal of human error, with data and information influencing the right decisions at the right time. But we need to be able to properly understand tech to make the most of it.
Written by Rosanna Lawn
