Courteney McDonnell is the chief revenue officer for Measurabl (Courtesy Measurabl).

Measurabl, the world’s most widely-adopted software for commercial real estate ESG (environmental, social, governance) data management, is expanding its presence in Canada with a recent partnership announcement with commercial real estate firm Colliers.

Colliers manages more than 1,000 properties across Canada.

Courteney McDonnell, chief revenue officer for Measurabl, said the company hosts 11 billion square feet across 80 different countries. In Canada, specifically, Measurabl hosts nearly 700 million square feet.

“ESG data has gone from ‘nice to have’ to a leading performance indicator for commercial real estate,” said McDonnell. “ESG standards held by investors and regulators continue to evolve.

“Real estate owners are increasingly focused on providing more accurate, granular data on demand. Measurabl is a scalable solution that allows professionals to manage, measure, disclose, and act on this data.”

In a news release, Ben Liao, Head of Colliers innovation, global, said the partnership strengthens Colliers’ position to solve its clients’ sustainability pain points and navigate the mounting complexity from regulations and climate targets.

“Our goal of delivering unrivaled client outcomes necessitates the use of best-in-class technology, together with the knowledge of our experts,” he said. “With access to Measurabl’s product team and data, our property management experts will focus on what they do best: making data-driven real estate decisions.”

Measurabl’s CRE, ESG platform most widely-used

Measurabl has its headquarters in San Diego with offices in New York and London. The company was founded about 10 years ago.

McDonnell said the company is the most widely-adopted ESG platform with a focus on commercial real estate.

“We’re really trying to help those in commercial real estate manage, measure, centralize and disclose all of their ESG components,” she said.

“The way that folks historically did this sort of thing was through spreadsheets or tapping on different teams throughout the organization — maybe an accounts payable team. What we’ve done is centralize that to make it far easier.”

The cloud-based, software as a service solution is a data management solution for commercial real estate. Measurabl aggregates accurate and auditable ESG data, incorporating features such as automated utility data collection, building and portfolio performance benchmarking and advanced reporting functionality, said McDonnell.

She said the company works with various commercial real estate buildings from industrial use to offices.

“Our goal in partnering with Colliers is we’re really trying to help empower them to bring their best-in-class services and investment management company to the market from a more digital perspective on the ESG front. We want to help them layer in their own sustainability services and offerings based on a technology foundation.”

The importance of ESG in CRE

ESG is becoming increasingly more important in the world of commercial real estate.

McDonnell said there is increased pressure from investors and regulators to disclose ESG metrics.

“In Europe, we’re even seeing financial penalties — similar things we’ll start to see in New York later this year as well. Beyond that, well we do believe you can do well by doing good. That’s kind of one of our sayings,” she said.

“When you think of due diligence when buying or selling assets, when you think about how your assets are doing broadly that you hold for any particular period of time, there is that additional pressure to have accurate investment grade data.

“I think a lot of folks have been used to having this on the financial side for a very long time, but now what we’re seeing is an increased pressure to have investment grade non-financial data as well.

“It’s just not sustainable to do this without technology. Working on spreadsheets and endless calls to different groups just simply is not investment grade.”

Colliers and Measurabl help clients manage portfolios

Colliers said its partnership with Measurabl will help clients better manage, measure, disclose and act on their portfolios.

In January 2019, Measurabl announced it had raised $18.7 million in Series B financing to expand its ESG platform for commercial real estate.

The company said ESG is particularly relevant to real estate since it is one of the world’s most polluting industries, responsible for nearly 71 per cent of U.S. electricity consumption, 39 per cent of carbon emissions, 14 per cent of potable water usage and 40 per cent of raw materials usage.

“We’re heading towards a convergence where ESG indicators are held in comparable esteem to traditional financial metrics,” said Matt Ellis, founder and CEO, Measurabl, in a release.

“As this new market reality takes hold, every real estate transaction — from investment to lending, appraisal to insurance, leasing to CapEx — will require easy access to accurate ESG indicators. Measurabl is building the digital infrastructure to enable this market transformation.”