Glossary

Assets are real estate elements, including portfolios, sites, land, external spaces, buildings, and equipment.

A building is a roofed and walled structure built for permanent use for different purposes.

BIM is a standard for generating and managing the digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of built assets.

CapEx is an amount spent to acquire or upgrade productive assets such as buildings, machinery, and equipment, vehicles [...] to increase the capacity or efficiency of a company for more than one accounting period.

Carbon intensity displays the carbon emission per m² , enabling the comparison of differently sized buildings.

CRREM is a research project initiated by the EU Commission to translate the overall targets of the Paris Climate Agreement into transparent emission and energy reduction pathways for the real estate sector.

Based on a scientific methodology (see http://www.crrem.org), the project identifies country and use-type specific decarbonization targets. The so-called CRREM tool, enables investors to benchmark a building's carbon performance against the CRREM pathways.

The Common Data Model is an initiative of Microsoft and various partners from different industries and provides a shared data language. Data and its meaning can be made usable in different contexts and form the basis for new applications.

Decarbonization is the process of reducing carbon emissions.

Emission factors are conversion factors that describe a certain amount of resource consumption (energy consumption, water consumption, waste generation) and related greenhouse gas emissions. Regarding energy consumption, emission factors for example have the unit kgCO2e/kWh.

Emission factors for fuels are more or less constant and similar for different countries.

Emission factors for electricity and district heating are far more complex. They vary based on the energy mix used in a specific country (or region) to produce electricity and heat in a particular year.

Emission scopes are a classification scheme of greenhouse gas emissions established by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG).

Energy consumption is the energy used to heat, cool, or power real estate assets.

Energy demand intensity displays the energy demand per m² , enabling the comparison of differently sized buildings.

External space is an open space within a site not occupied by a building.

A floor is a structure dividing a building into vertical levels.

The floor area is the sum of all areas within the perimeter of the outside walls of each floor.

The floor area ratio is the ratio between the total floor area of the building and the floor area of the building.

gif is a German association, which provides guidelines for real estate data exchange. For more information, see https://zgif.org/en/.

The Global Warming Potential is a measure developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. Specifically, it is a measure of how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of carbon dioxide (CO₂).

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol is a multi-stakeholder partnership of businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and others convened by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

The GHG protocol supports emission reduction efforts, amongst others goals.

The total floor area contained within the building measured to the external face of the external walls.

Gross Internal Area is the area of a building measured to the internal face of the perimeter walls at each floor level.

Key performance indicators evaluate an organization's success or the success of a particular activity (such as projects, programs, products, and other initiatives) in which it engages.

The land is a portion of the earth's solid surface distinguished by boundaries or ownership.

Net asset value refers to the actual enterprise value or property value. It is calculated as the difference between a company's total (property) assets (sum of market values) and liabilities.

Net energy demand refers to the total energy consumption minus on-site renewable energy generation.

While on-site renewables contribute to overall consumption, they don't affect operational carbon emissions. Feeding energy back into the grid further lowers net energy demand.

The net internal area is the gross internal area less the floor areas taken up by lobbies, enclosed machinery rooms on the roof, stairs and escalators, mechanical and electrical services, lifts, columns, toilet areas (other than in domestic property), ducts, and risers.

The value sums up all imminent carbon costs based on the selected discount yield and indicates carbon risks in your portfolio and for individual buildings. The NPV is often stated per m².

Net rentable area is the space within the leased unit that’s actually available to the tenant for use.

Piece of property registered under a numbered ownership with the land registry.

Pathways are annual targets on emission or energy consumption, usually until 2050.

Real-estate objects are all objects related to real estate like site, land, building, external space, floor space, roof, and facade.

Shadow pricing refers to the practice of assigning a monetary value to something whose value can only be estimated because it is not something regularly bought and sold in a marketplace.

A site is the spatial location of an actual or planned structure or set of structures. The real-estate object 'site' contains buildings, lands, and external spaces.

Refers to a building that does not meet its CRREM target.

The first year in which a building fails to meet its corresponding CRREM decarbonization target.

Sustainability is a principle of acting with a long-term perspective avoiding any depletion of natural or human resources. Usually, a breakdown into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) aspects is typical.

A thermal envelope is everything around the building [...] to shield the internal space from the outdoors. For example, it includes the wall and roof assemblies, insulation, air/vapor retarders, windows, and weatherstripping and caulking.

The remaining rental period of a property or portfolio is weighted according to the net rental area or the income attributable to each lease.

Values of the selected (calendar) year are compared to the previous (calendar) year.

YTD is a period from the beginning of the year to the current date. The year relates to the calendar or fiscal year, depending on the data provided.