(H04) The Great Convergence: Green Building, ESG, and Sustainable Finance

For more than 25 years, green building has provided a framework to define leadership and drive market transformation. The result is thousands of certified green building projects that are more efficient, less polluting, and healthier for their occupants. Today, there are new tools driving market transformation. Green building is increasingly used in tandem with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting as part of equity and fixed-income investment strategies. Together, green building and ESG are powering a new generation of market transformation, driven by engaged investors and impact-oriented investment vehicles. Led by industry leaders from the US and Australia, this session will provide a global overview of this emerging area of practice with a focus on complementary and synergistic aspects of green building and ESG. We will address Big Pictures drivers, including new regulation from the European Commission and U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. We will consider market priorities, including the use of green building in the GRESB ESG benchmark and, more broadly, in green and sustainable bonds and loans. Finally, we will look forward and consider how green building and ESG will work together in the next generation of financial products, including a focus on impact frameworks, the role of green building certification, and post-issuance performance measurement. We will illustrate key concepts with examples from the field, such as green building-based green bonds and sustainability-linked loans. Participants will come away with a sense of the opportunities and challenges offered by the “great convergence” between green building, ESG, and sustainable finance.