Property - Net zero carbon pathway

We are proud to have become a signatory to the Better Buildings Partnership climate commitment. This is both comprehensive and ambitious requiring each signatory to publish their own Net Zero Carbon pathway, setting out how they will deliver against a net zero carbon target. The commitment also requires signatories to report annually against their pathways, ensuring transparency so that progress can be gauged over time.

At the end of 2015, the international community came together for the first time – after nearly two decades of deliberations – to sign the first international, legally binding agreement on climate change. This document – the Paris Climate Agreement – stated that the parties included agreed to limit global warming to well below 2°C and ideally below 1.5°C.

Of the countries that signed the Paris Climate Agreement, the United Kingdom was the first major economy to translate that commitment into a national legally binding target to achieve net zero carbon by 2050 at the latest. It is this national legislation that drives our agenda for the coming decades and guides RLAM to play our part in contributing to that national and international goal.

In pursuit of this goal, RLAM has signed up to the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative. This initiative convenes an international group of asset managers who are committed to achieving net zero carbon by 2050 at the latest, which gives us a better chance of limiting average global warming to below 1.5°C, as well as supporting investment that is aligned with net zero carbon goals.

This global initiative – which is part of the UN-convened Race to Zero – commits organisations to:

1. Work in partnership with asset owner clients on decarbonization goals that are consistent with an ambition to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner across all assets under management.
2. Set an interim target for the proportion of assets to be managed in line with the attainment of net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.
3. Review the interim target at least every five years, with a view to ratcheting up the proportion of AUM covered until 100% of assets are included.

The net zero carbon strategy that RLAM has set out for its property assets aligns with these commitments and provides a roadmap for how it can be achieved ahead of 2050.

In alignment with the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, RLAM has reviewed its carbon footprint and trajectory of our property portfolio for the coming decades. Based on this review, we have developed an informed roadmap to bring our portfolio to net zero carbon. This pathway is aligned with the latest guidance and principles for the built environment on how to reduce and compensate for our emissions meaningfully and accountably.

‘Transition to net zero carbon’ was identified as a material issue during the recent development of our Responsible Property Investment strategy. The issue will be managed in different ways across the four strategic focus areas of ‘Investing in a resilient portfolio’, ‘Developing for the future’, ‘Managing assets for positive impact’ and ‘Responsible decision making’. The selected interventions will depend on the focus area and the implementation of both the overarching RPI strategic roadmap and the subset of actions within the RLAM net zero carbon pathway.