The global standard for transition risk in real estate

Built on science. Governed for the market.

CRREM began as a three-year research initiative funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program. The original mandate was clear: develop science-based decarbonization pathways for commercial real estate that translate global climate targets into property-level performance benchmarks.

The research consortium — led by IIÖ (Institute for Real Estate Economics, Wörgl, Austria) alongside GRESB, the University of Alicante, Ulster University, and TIAS School for Business and Society — produced the first set of CRREM Pathways covering European markets. The output was rigorous and immediately practical.

What happened next was unexpected. Major pension funds and sovereign wealth funds — including APG, PGGM, Norges Bank Investment Management, GPIF, and La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec — drove the global roll-out of CRREM, alongside asset managers and industry bodies who adopted the framework faster and more broadly than anyone anticipated. By 2023, CRREM had expanded from European coverage to 44 countries, with more than 1,000 pathways spanning all major property types. GRESB integrated CRREM into its global benchmarking framework. SBTi adopted the CRREM Pathways as the official methodology for the buildings sector.

The scale of adoption made one thing clear: CRREM had outgrown a research project structure. It needed independent governance, dedicated resources, and a mandate to serve the entire market as a public good.

In December 2024, the CRREM Foundation was established in the Netherlands as an independent non-profit entity. The intellectual property was transferred to the Foundation, a multi-layered governance structure was put in place, and a dedicated team began building the operational capacity to match CRREM's global reach.