EPRA (European Public Real Estate Association) is a European association that aims to be the “voice of listed real estate companies, investors and their suppliers”. Through its 270 members, it represents €470 billion in real estate assets.
How the EPRA Awards work?
The association offers its members the opportunity to report on their financial performance, but also, since 2012, on their ESG practices. It evaluates the responses and awards (or not) a prize to the respondents.
There are 3 prize levels (bronze, silver and gold). Gold goes to the best performers, depending on their degree of adherence to the “EPRA sBPR” (“Best Practices” recommended by EPRA).
Concerning the ESG component, the evaluation covers 28 extra-financial performance measures divided into:
- 16 environmental indicators,
- 9 social indicators,
- And 3 governance indicators.
Good to know: The association tends to align its indicators with those of GRESB, which is the reference in this area.
The winners are announced at the association’s annual conference.
Interest and limits of the EPRA evaluation
The assessment proposed by EPRA (and all its associative activity) specifically concerns listed real estate companies and real estate investors.
Furthermore, the assessment it proposes is one of the “lightest” (in number of ESG items) existing in this sector of activity. It is notably much less demanding than that of GRESB.
EPRA is best known in Europe.
Membership of the association amounts to €7,500 or €10,000 (according to criteria available here) per year.
In 2018, out of 139 respondents to the environmental component, 46 were British companies and 14 were French companies. In total, 63 were awarded a prize.
