Abraham Lincoln once said, “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.” Two centuries later, we know it takes more than just commitments to make the transition to a climate-resilient, net-zero carbon and nature-positive real estate sector a reality.

We could look at this as a stage play. If the first act of the transition is about environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments, the second act is about moving from commitments to action, the theme of the PRI in Person 2023 conference held in Tokyo this past October. Indeed, many institutional investors in Asia Pacific are signatories of the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change or the Finance for Bio­diversity Pledge, to name a few. With those commitments comes the need to act accordingly to ensure stranded-asset risk resulting from climate change, loss of biodiversity, growing inequality and other ESG challenges, are minimised