Embodied Carbon Reporting by German Real Estate Institutional Investors

Background: The building sector is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. The European Union pledges to become climate neutral by 2050. To reach this goal, member states will need to account for embodied carbon emissions. Currently, in Germany, there are no regulations that require institutional real estate investors to account for the embodied carbon of their buildings. However, existing voluntary measurement frameworks could be used for embodied carbon accounting. Hence, this is the first systematic study exploring public disclosures by German institutional real estate investors on their embodied carbon emissions to improve the transparency of their emissions. Methods: The study uses a mixed-methods research design. Secondary data was collected using purposive sampling of German institutional real estate investors and investigating their public disclosures via corporate websites. This data was then used to shape exploratory semi-structured interviews with industry experts from those institutions responsible for addressing sustainability issues. Results: While the built environment sector is one of the major contributors of carbon emissions and is under pressure to disclose these in a transparent way in order to evaluate opportunities for reductions, the current public disclosures are limited and lack substance, suggesting that institutional real estate investors in Germany are yet to adequately quantify their environmental impact regarding embodied carbon and, thus, need to improve reporting on their progress towards climate neutrality. Conclusions: This study gives an overview of embodied carbon measuring and accounting tools, current and proposed regulations in Germany, and sets the foundations for best-practice recommendations on embodied carbon accounting across Europe.