Taxonomy as driver

Listed companies are facing increasing demand on sustainability documentation driven by the EU Taxonomy and reporting directives. To attract financing, win deals, and sell assets, the Real Estate sector will soon face stricter demands affecting both those working within construction, renovation, maintenance as well as within acquisition and ownership of buildings.

 

The documentation requirements are detailed and demanding. To prove low climate footprint, large non-residential building will have to be efficiently operated through energy performance monitoring. Owners of real estate also need to document that they manage material climate risk. Specifically, calling themselves green under the EU Taxonomy requires:

  • Screening of physical climate risks for the coming 10-30 years;
  • Vulnerability assessment to assess materiality of the climate risks;
  • Assessment of adaptation solutions that can reduce the identified risks.

 

The climate risks could relate to storms, heat waves, flooding, and landslides. Among these, flood risk is top of list in many urban areas in Europe. Not withstanding, all of them are topics that the real estate sector has little experience in analyzing, managing, and documenting.

 

 

 

Innovation as solution

If your building is located at the shores of a rising sea or the banks of a dynamic river course, the risk you must deal with may be very material, but also largely predictable. In the case of intense rainfall events in urban area, the situation may be much more challenging to forecast.

 

Screening risk and assessing vulnerability in a full real estate portfolio requires that you can model how much water may be at the doorstep of your existing or future buildings. While data tools and modelling software do exist, a leap of innovation is required to integrate into the real estate sector.

 

 

FloodCube – a tool for collaboration around nature risk

At 7Analytics, we strive to make knowledge of nature risks readily available for the real estate sector. As a disruptive technology, our AI-based FloodCube combines machine learning with big data automation.

 

While current solutions require multiple software programs and some manual calculations, the FloodCube performs all tasks in a total package that accelerates surface water analysis by 50 per cent. Combined with a no-code and graphical user interface, it makes a powerful and accessible tool for collaboration across the sector and disciplines.

 

OBOS, Norway’s largest housing developer, entered a partnership 7Analytics around FloodCube to capture flood risk in their real estate portfolio:

 

“Increase in climate change and urbanization causes new demands and a more complex risk picture for developers. 7Analytics provides a digital solution to assess and foresee climate related risks and thus prevent unnecessary damage to buildings. We have faith in 7Analytics. and have already implemented their tool in several construction projects” – Birgitte Molstad, Environemntal Director at OBOS 

 

 

Innovation is fundamental in future proofing real estate. Using transparent tools like the FloodCube will surface the needed knowledge about risk and sustainability.