Accounting for Sustainability: Real Estate's Dual Identity

When the heat is on, who leads? These are the CRE updates you won't want to miss.

🗓️ July 11, 2025

As temperatures soar across the U.S. and Europe this summer, bringing extreme weather events and power outages, commercial real estate is once again forced to reckon with its dual identity: both as a contributor to the climate crisis and as a powerful lever for change. The built environment accounts for 42% of all global emissions, of which 70% come from building operations themselves and the other 30% from construction. 

Walking the talk This week, we shared our 2024 Sustainability Report, highlighting not just how we advise clients but how we’re reimagining our own portfolio and operations at scale. With 52,000 employees in 60 countries and over five billion square feet of space under management, this work isn’t theoretical—it’s foundational. Read the summary or the full report here.

Here’s what stood out: 

• We achieved a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions (that is, our own direct emissions, and emissions from energy that we buy and use)—six years ahead of target 

• 87% of our corporate offices’ electricity was sourced from renewables 

Turning the mirror inward doesn’t stop at our operations—it demands a clear vision for the future of the built environment. Never more important than now, given that over half of the world’s population resides in cities, a figure expected to grow by 2.4 billion by 2050.  

“Cities are at the heart of humanity’s future, but they are also ground zero for some of our biggest challenges: climate change, social inequality, and economic fragility,” says Anacláudia Rossbach, United Nations Under-Secretary-General. Last year, a first-of-its-kind tool masterminded by our international research team reminded us that sustainability and equity must go hand in hand. The Inclusive Cities Barometer measures environmental, spatial, social and economic inclusion across 79 cities in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Find out where your city sits across our four key dimensions. 

Madrid stood out as the strongest environmental performer, propelled by innovative sustainability projects that make the city more accessible—to all of its residents.  The Metropolitan Forest initiative aims to plant 1.5 million trees across a 75-kilometer-long corridor to mitigate urban heat, cut air pollution, and make green space ubiquitous.  Madrid’s “green lung” is of the clearest examples in Europe of how nature-based solutions can move the needle on climate resilience, inclusion, and livability all at once. Check out the best-in-class examples of inclusive cities in EMEA. 

As CRE professionals, and stewards of the built environment, our job isn’t just to build or manage buildings, it’s to future-proof them and the communities that anchor them. Whether you’re leasing office space, planning a capital improvement, or mapping location strategy, sustainability is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a license to operate. 

Just a few days before the Fourth of July, the Senate passed Trump's Big Beautiful Bill 51-50, with Vice President Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. At 887 pages, it was no light reading for Congress. Had the bill failed, (meaning, had the 2017 tax cuts expired), we would have seen steep tax hikes for individuals and businesses alike. Chief Economist Kevin Thorpe analyzed the bill in This Week in CRE. Watch the full video.

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Trump's pulling trade partners for a chat The 90-day tariff holding pattern broke on July 9. Trump wrote a first batch of letters to the Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka (none of which are major industrial rivals to the U.S.), alerting them of new reciprocal tariff rates planned for August 1. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that more warehouse space is vacant than ever in the last 11 years, likely as a consequence of rapidly changing trade policy.