RM2.1: Environmental Risk Assessment – Above Green

(3.55 points)

Intent

The intent of this indicator is to assess the entity’s process for assessing material environmental risks, and its understanding and mitigation of these risks. Systematic responses to environmental risks include effective risk assessment, thoughtful mitigation planning, and implementation of action plans.

Requirements

Select Yes or No: If selecting Yes, select applicable sub-options.

Has the entity performed an environmental risk assessment(s) within the last three years?

Yes
- Select elements of the risk assessment process undertaken by the entity (multiple answers possible)
  - Risk assessments are regularly conducted or reviewed and updated
  - Risks are analyzed
  - Risks are evaluated and treated
- Select all material issues for which risk is assessed (multiple answers possible)
  - Air pollution
  - Biodiversity and habitat
  - Climate/climate change adaptation
  - Contaminated land
  - Energy
  - Greenhouse gas emissions
  - Hazardous substances
  - Light pollution
  - Material sourcing and resource efficiency
  - Noise pollution
  - Resilience to catastrophe/disaster
  - Waste
  - Water outflows/discharges
  - Water inflows/withdrawls
  - Other: ____________
No
- Provide additional context for the answer provided (not validated, for reporting purposes only)
  ________________________

2020 changes: “Hazardous substances” added as an environmental issue.

Contractor and/or operator engagement: In some cases, an indicator addresses an activity that applies to the reporting entity, yet is undertaken by an assigned contractor, operator and/or contracted entity. This is often the case, for example, for PPP type arrangements. In these cases, when providing evidence, the participant should specify the entity undertaking the activity and the relationship to that entity, to verify how these actions are applicable to the reporting entity. Copies of redacted contractual agreements/clauses to verify these relationships are acceptable.

Validation

Evidence: Document upload or hyperlink. The evidence should sufficiently support all the items selected for this question. If a hyperlink is provided, ensure that it is not outdated and the relevant page can be accessed within two steps.

The provided evidence piece(s) should:

Confirm that an environmental risk assessment was conducted.
Contain all selected elements of the risk assessment process, highlighting or bringing attention to these where possible.
Include all selected issues within the assessment, highlighting or bringing attention to these where possible.

Evidence examples may include but are not limited to:

A document describing the entity’s environmental risk assessments or other tangible proof of the entity's risk assessment activity.
Acceptable evidence may include an extract of a procedure undertaken such as register or matrix, checklists, scenario analysis or a section of an environmental management plan addressing environmental risks.

Evidence completeness: Evidence does not necessarily need to be provided in full. Rather, the evidence needs to be sufficient to verify the existence of the claimed risk assessment for each issue.

Reporting Year: Evidence provided must refer to an assessment that has taken place within the last three years; up to and including the end of the reporting year identified in EC3.

Other: State the other environmental issue. Ensure that the other answer provided is not a duplicate of a selected option above (e.g. recycling when ‘waste management’ is selected). It is possible to report multiple other answers. If valid, the issue will be assigned Medium Relevance.

Document upload: Participants may upload several documents. When providing a document upload, it is mandatory to indicate where relevant information can be found within the document.

See Appendix 4 of the reference guide for additional information about GRESB Validation.

Scoring

This indicator is scored as a Two Section Indicator (i.e. Section 1: 'Elements' response and, Section 2: 'Evidence' response).

Section 1:Fractional points are awarded depending on the participant having i.) financial or non-financial consequence of ESG targets and ii.) the selected group(s) of employees. Employee groups are not equally scored. Fractional points are then aggregated to calculate the indicator’s final score. It is not necessary to select all checkboxes to receive maximum points.

Other:Any ‘other’ answer provided will be manually validated and must be accepted before achieving the respective fractional score. If multiple ‘other’ answers are listed, more than one may be accepted in manual validation, but only one will be counted towards the score.

Materiality-based scoring: This indicator applies materiality-based scoring. Specific materiality weightings are assigned to the entity for each ESG issue in the GRESB Materiality Assessment indicator (RC7). The weightings are set at one of four levels for each of the ESG issues: No Relevance, Low Relevance, Medium Relevance, and High Relevance. Where an issue is of 'No relevance' or ‘Low relevance’ then the issue is not considered in scoring (i.e. there is no impact on score whether or not the issue is addressed). If an issue is of 'Medium relevance' then the issue counts towards the score with ‘medium’ weighting. If an issue is of 'High relevance' then the issue counts towards the score with ‘high’ weighting.

All issues of “Medium relevance” and “High relevance” need to be selected and addressed in the evidence to obtain the maximum score. For more details refer to the section on Materiality Based Scoring in this Reference Guide or download the GRESB Materiality & Scoring Tool.

Section 2:‘Evidence’ is mandatory for this indicator. Therefore, no points will be awarded unless the hyperlink and/or the uploaded document is considered valid, based on the evidence criteria stated above. The evidence is validated which determines a multiplier, according to the table below:

Evidence: The evidence is manually validated and assigned a multiplier, according to the table below. The evidence must support the validation requirements. If any requirements are not met, the evidence may be partially accepted or not accepted depending on the level of alignment with the requirements.

Validation status	Score
Accepted	2/2
Partially accepted	1/2
Not accepted/not provided	0

Terminology

Air pollution: Air pollutants are particles and gases released into the atmosphere that may adversely affect living organisms. Additionally, some pollutants contribute to climate change or exacerbate the effects of climate change locally.

Biodiversity and habitat: Issues related to wildlife, endangered species, ecosystem services, habitat management, and invasive species. Biodiversity refers to the variety of all plant and animal species. Habitat refers to the natural environment in which these plant and animal species live and function.

Climate change adaptation: Preparation for long-term change in climatic conditions or climate related events. Example of climate change adaptation measures can include, but are not limited to: building flood defenses, xeriscaping and using tree species resistant to storms and fires, adapting building codes to extreme weather events.

Contamination: Land that contains substances in or under it that are actually or potentially hazardous to human health or the environment.

Energy: Energy refers to energy consumption and generation from non-renewable and renewable sources (e.g. electricity, heating, cooling, steam).

Environmental issues: The impact on living and non-living natural systems, including land, air, water and ecosystems. This includes, but is not limited to, biodiversity, transport and product and service-related impacts, as well as environmental compliance and expenditures.

Greenhouse gas emissions: GHGs refers to the seven gases listed in the Kyoto Protocol: carbon dioxide (CO₂); methane (CH₄); nitrous oxide (N₂O); hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs); perfluorocarbons (PFCs); nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆).

Hazardous substances: Also known as dangerous goods. Any substances that can pose a health or physical hazard to humans or the environment, such as carcinogens, toxic agents, irritants, corrosives, combustibles or explosives.

Light pollution: Excessive or obtrusive artificial light also known as photo pollution or luminous pollution. Examples of light pollution and reflection include: spilled light from construction zones and parking lots which may impact breeding grounds or resting areas; highly reflective towers which may affect bird flight.

Materials sourcing and resource efficiency: Responsible sourcing of materials considers the environmental, social and economic impacts of the procurement and production of products and materials. Resource efficiency means using those products and materials in an efficient and sustainable manner while minimizing impacts on the environment and society.

Noise pollution: Refers to noise pollution, also known as environmental noise, which is the propagation of noise with harmful impact on the activity of human or animal life.

Policy: Defines an organizational commitment, direction or intention as formally adopted by the organization.

Resilience to catastrophe/disaster: Preparedness of the built environment towards existing and future threats of natural disasters (e.g., the ability to absorb disturbances such as increased precipitation or flooding while maintaining its structure). This can be achieved by management policies, informational technologies, educating tenant, community, suppliers and physical measures at the asset level.

Risk assessment: Careful examination of the factors that could potentially adversely impact the value or longevity of an infrastructure asset. The results of the assessment assist in identifying measures that have to be implemented in order to prevent and mitigate the risks.

Waste: Entity's consideration of waste disposal methods and whether waste minimization strategies emphasize prioritizing options for reuse, recycling, and then recovery over other disposal options to minimize ecological impact.

Water outflows/discharges: Discharge of water to water bodies (e.g. lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers and groundwater) or to third-parties for treatment or use.

Water inflows/withdrawals: Water drawn into the boundaries of the entity from all sources (including surface water, ground water, rainwater, and municipal water supply) as well as water reuse, efficiency, and recycling, including the entity's consideration of whether water sources are significantly affected by withdrawal of water.

References

CDP Climate Change 2020 - C2.1 Management Practices

DJSI CSA 2019 - 3.3.3 Emerging Risks

DJSI CSA 2019 - 3.3.4 Risk Culture

GRI Standards 2016 - 102-29: Identifying and managing economic, environmental and social impacts