Snapshot of ULI Poland Urban Supply Chain Council on 25th October in Warsaw

Bartosz Clemenz was the host at DWF offices and welcomed everybody. Following that, our two Co-Chairs, Anna Duchnowska and Soren Rodian Olsen, introduced ULI’s rules for Product Councils as well as the agenda for the meeting, including the Product Council discussion topic ESG temperature check: how long is the road to seeing actual impact?

Izabella Makowska-Kwiecińska of Colliers kicked off the discussions by showing a presentation covering Net Zero Art. 6/8/9 in context of ESG / sustainability reporting requirements as well as taxonomy regulations for businesses. Iza went on to cover Energy Performance Certificates, net zero balance of green house gasses (GHG), and upcoming / expected regulations that will impact our industry. The presentation was very detailed and informative – Soren followed up by asking all participants if they had learned something new and 90% confirmed that was the case!

Driving the round table discussion forward, Aleksandra Słowińska of Nrep Poland followed up by asking what is perceived to be most important from an investor perspective – the E or the S or the G? While most participants suggested Environment, the fact – according to a recent CFA survey – is the G (Governance). However, a lot of focus is still on carbon emissions because it is easy to measure, and while ESG is becoming more common in investment decisions, capex and investment returns remain most important to (especially non-European) investors. As part of the round table discussion, the product council members reached consensus that “wanting to do good vs. making money” most often represents a conflict, and that legislation is necessary to make a real push forward on implementing ESG measures (and to comply with EU taxonomy).

At the end of the product council meeting, the sentiment among the members was a timeline of approx. 5 years before we can expect to see actual impact from adaptation of EU directives in Poland, and stakeholders in the real estate industry being proactively pushing for implementing change in regard to ESG.

Thank you to DWF for hosting us!