Environmental (Sustainability) Reporting in 2020 and 2021 by Real Estate Companies from German Speaking Countries

Dominika P. Gałkiewicz – University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol, Finance, Accounting & Auditing, Andreas Hofer-Str. 7, 6330 Kufstein, Austria
Bernd Wollmann – University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol, Marketing & Customer Experience, Andreas Hofer-Str. 7, 6330 Kufstein, Austria

Abstract: Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regulations, such as the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and the forthcoming Taxon­omy Regulation in the European Union (EU), have had and will continue to have a lasting impact on the real estate sector and various other stakeholders within the market. This study, therefore, compares the current European reg­ulation with standard sustainability reporting practices in the real estate (RE) industry in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In particular, we aim to inves­tigate what type of information related to environmental issues is being reg­ularly provided and by how many of the 55 largest RE firms in the years 2020 and 2021. We show that the majority of the environmental indicators recom­mended by the European Real Estate Association (EPRA) are more often re­ported in 2021 than in 2020. For example, a 30% or higher reporting frequen­cy in 2021 could be observed for the energy intensity of rentable area kWh/m2, scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions t CO2e, EPRA recommendations implementation, and citing of standards used. Irrespective of the positive development, howev­er, there is still a lot of room for improving reporting quality as small reporting frequencies are identifiable for the following “E” measures: energy consump­tion BOP MWh (6 in 2020 and 4 in 2021), emissions intensity of BOP kg CO2e/m2 (8 in 2020 and 7 in 2021) and Scope 3 t CO2e (7 in 2020 and 11 in 2021). The pro­vided evidence highlights how low the reporting of “E” measures recommend­ed by the EPRA generally is. In January 2023, the Corporate Sustainability Re­porting Directive (CSRD) was officially enacted, marking a significant mile­stone in the field of corporate sustainability reporting. This newly established directive represents a significant advancement in the regulatory framework governing corporate social and environmental information disclosure. About 50,000 companies will now be required to report on sustainability. Thus, it is key for individuals, organizations, and politicians introducing new sustain­ability reporting rules in Europe to understand that too complex rules may not be appropriately complied with and keep uniform EU taxonomy report­ing requirements besides CSRD easy to apply in the future.

7th International Scientific Conference – EMAN 2023 – Economics and Management: How to Cope With Disrupted Times, Ljubljana, Slovenia, March 23, 2023, SELECTED PAPERS, published by: Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans, Belgrade, Serbia; ISBN 978-86-80194-70-7, ISSN 2683-4510, DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/EMAN.S.P.2023

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission. 

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