Thought
Data Availability is the GRESB Game-Changer You Can’t Ignore
Anyone who has ever submitted to GRESB knows that gathering data is a huge part of the reporting process. Data availability contributes to a significant portion of your GRESB score – the better the percentage, the higher the potential score. But it’s getting harder and harder to stay ahead.
Data Completeness, Data Coverage and Data Quality – who’s who?
You can’t achieve top marks in data availability without integrating all aspects of data collection. Completeness, Coverage and Quality are not just isolated metrics; they work together to shape the overall usability of your data. Let’s start by breaking down these key concepts.
Completeness
Completeness relates to the timeliness and consistency of the data over a period. It’s not enough to collect data sporadically; GRESB expects continuous data that covers the whole reporting period. Completeness also involves filling gaps where data might be missing, using estimates as a last resort to ensure your portfolio’s reporting remains as full as possible.
Coverage
Coverage refers to the extent to which data is collected across your assets or portfolio. In the context of GRESB reporting, this means ensuring that data is gathered for as many buildings or units as possible within a portfolio. Higher coverage indicates that more of the portfolio’s total floor area is being monitored, which is crucial for achieving a better score.
Quality
Quality focuses on the accuracy of the data collected. High-quality data is consistent, free of errors, and reflects the actual performance of the assets. At EVORA, we ensure data quality by running multiple checks through our data collection platform, such as flagging anomalies if consumption appears unusually high or low.
These three concepts are interdependent, and they all matter when shaping and executing your long-term sustainability strategy. Data Availability can’t be achieved without both extensive Coverage and thorough Completeness. Quality enhances the value of all your data efforts, ensuring that the insights you derive from your data are trustworthy.
In GRESB reporting, data availability is the metric that currently separates the chaff from the wheat, and poor percentages means your entity may struggle to benchmark against competitors.
Why the Data Benchmark is Getting Harder to Top
Recently, there’s been a shift from regional to country-specific benchmarking in GRESB reporting, and that has raised the bar for entities aiming to achieve high scores in countries with high data availability. Previously, entities were benchmarked against peers across different countries, which allowed some flexibility in terms of expectations on data availability. However, the new country-level focus means that performance is now measured directly against domestic peers within the same sector. This change has intensified the competition, especially in countries with more advanced sustainability practices, like the UK, where data is generally expected to be available.
As a result, organisations now need to meet or exceed higher local benchmarks for data availability, rather than relying on broader regional comparisons. This change has increased the pressure to collect more comprehensive data, as missing or incomplete data can drastically lower GRESB scores when directly compared to high-performing local peers.
Louise Russell, Associate Director at EVORA, says: “What we’ve seen this year is that there has been a real step change in data availability in countries like the UK. You might think 50% available data is good, but if competitors hit 80-90% data availability and you’re lagging behind, it’s a lost opportunity that could have a significant impact on your GRESB score.”
GRESB tends to be selective about the information they share publicly, and each year the benchmark is a moving and unknown target, making it somewhat unpredictable. Data availability is the metric du jour, but its dominance may be temporary. As the bar for availability is met across the board, GRESB will likely place greater emphasis on efficiency – emphasising the importance of a long-term strategy built on solid data.
What’s Stopping Entities from Reaching 100% Availability?
Utility data collection is notoriously time consuming and complex. Some buildings have straightforward setups, where one data point covers the entire asset’s consumption. However, properties like retail centres or industrial sites often have multiple units, each with separate utility supplies, which means more complex data collection.
Thankfully, our experts can position you as a leader in sustainability data though our collection capabilities. Our technology can source global building consumption data for accurate insights, starting at the fiscal meter for unparalleled precision, and with thousands of data connections actively supported, we can provide great coverage and completeness, while also quality-assuring the data we collect.
We’ve developed a platform that supports the collection methods necessary to integrate with the data sources holding your utility data. Our diverse methods of data collection and skilled experts helps you stay on top of the data acquisition, while our consultants help you put that data to good use. By working with EVORA, you gain a trusted partner in sustainability who understands the complex nature of data collection and GRESB reporting, and how to improve your performance year after year.
Ready to enhance the data availability for your next GRESB submission? Reach out to our team today to discuss how we can help you collect more data, improve your reporting, and ultimately score higher in GRESB.
