"When enough organizations decide their data can do more good informing a globally shared science than sitting locked in a private system, the whole market benefits – pathways get sharper, risk gets priced more accurately, and decisions get better for everyone."
A little over a year into my new role at the CRREM Foundation, and one thing stands out above the rest. The market has consistently asked for science-based transition pathways that are locally grounded and globally comparable.
Since establishing the CRREM Foundation, we’ve strengthened our governance, deepened our engagement with the market, and built the infrastructure to make the pathways more accurate and useful for the decisions our industry needs to make.
We’re taking this ask seriously and have been hard at work building the next generation of the CRREM Pathways. These will be the real proof.
Good data, good pathways
The best buildings are constructed from the highest-quality materials. Carefully sourced, thoughtfully selected, chosen because they enable an excellent product and hold up over time.
The same is true of transition pathways. Accurate, representative datasets from across countries and property types are the raw materials that credible pathways are built from. Get the inputs right, and everything built on top of them: transition risk assessments, capital allocation decisions, retrofit planning, etc. improves too.
As one investor on our Foundation Board put it: what’s good for CRREM is good for the market. If the market is going to use these pathways to make decisions, it stands to reason the market should have a hand in shaping them. Our open-contribution model – the framework we introduced this year for voluntary, market-driven data sharing – is how we get there.
Scientific rigor with real on-the-ground performance
We’re introducing what we’re calling an “open-contribution model.” This is a new way for the market to voluntarily share the data that shapes CRREM’s transition pathways, rather than pathways being developed in a closed process. We’re bringing this to life by opening the door for data platforms, government entities, building owners, investors, industry associations, and research institutions to voluntarily contribute data and market intelligence directly into pathway development.
This will enable us to pair global scientific rigor with real on-the-ground energy performance data, real building stock characteristics, and real market conditions at a scale that has never been done before. These are the key ingredients that close the gap between a model that’s theoretically sound, and one that reflects reality closely enough for the market to trust it with capital allocation. It’s how we answer the market’s call for locally grounded and globally comparable pathways.
The scale of the task
Building pathways at the scale CRREM operates at is not a small undertaking. Different property types, and dozens of markets, each with its own energy systems, climate conditions, and building stock features. A truly global, credible standard must reflect as much of it as possible.
The biggest opportunity is access. Much of the data that would sharpen the CRREM Pathways already exists – it just sits fragmented across data platforms, locked inside proprietary systems, or held by individual owners and institutions without a shared mechanism to contribute it to something bigger. Our pathways have always been built on the best available evidence. This is how we go further.
No single dataset will transform a pathway. But when enough organizations decide their data can do more good informing a globally shared science than sitting locked in a private system, the whole market benefits — pathways get sharper, risk gets priced more accurately, and decisions get better for everyone, not just the contributor.
How we’re closing that gap
As a non-profit, science-led organization, our role is to be the shared connective infrastructure the industry can trust, build, and use together to steer effective, data-driven transition risk assessment and planning.
CRREM develops pathways across every major sector and market, with a small, focused team. We won’t close the data gap on our own. Our open-contribution model builds an ecosystem of different players from across the industry, with the ambition to tap the best available data, insights, and technical ability for pathway development. It takes a village, and every contribution strengthens the science behind the pathways.
What this means for you
If your organization holds real, measured data on building performance, energy use, or market conditions, we would like to work with you on this. That might mean sharing an anonymized dataset from a leading data management platform, granular building stock data from an owner or investor, market intelligence from a consultant, or empirical research from an academic institution. Whatever shape your data or insights take, it has a role to play.
This isn’t just a contribution to CRREM. It’s a stake in getting the pathways right for your own portfolio, your clients, and the market at large. CRREM is gaining significant traction in how buildings are priced and financed, and our pathways are the ones your organization, your investors, and your tenants are using to assess transition risks on the assets you hold. All the more reason to help shape them and get it right.
The next CRREM Pathways are due to be released in November 2027. Partners who contribute now will directly support the science behind the pathways used across the industry and will be recognized as part of the group that helped build them. Register for one of our Townhall sessions on September 23 to learn more about how you can get involved.
Where this leads
We imagine a built environment where all participants – owners, investors, consultants, developers, occupiers, governments – work from pathways that are scientifically robust and activating towards the same thing. We’ve laid the foundation: the organization, the governance, and the leadership to develop local pathways at a global scale. Now we’re opening the door even wider for all the industry to be part of the way forward, shaping the science the market will use for years to come.
