“Many banks and credit institutions are still struggling to keep track of the maze of regulations and to demonstrate the sustainability of their economic activities in face of the constantly changing stream of new requirements. The top 15 percent benchmarking criteria provide the necessary transparency and serve as a guide for the members institutions of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) and other financial service providers," says Matthias Fischer, Deputy Division Manager in the Real Estate Valuation Department of vdp. Top 15 percent eligibility is based on the EU Taxonomy Regulation and the scope of ’acquisition and ownership of buildings.
A building is considered taxonomy-compliant if, among other factors, it is in the top 15 percent of the national or regional building stock with regard to primary energy demand. In their annual benchmarking study, vdp and Drees & Sommer have calculated the metrics which are necessary to verify taxonomy compliance for the third year in succession.
New: Benchmarks for Hotel Buildings
“To take the changed regulations into account and define the top 15 percent criteria as precisely as possible, we have further refined our methods. We have, for example, added new carbon emissions intensity metrics and hotel buildings as an additional asset class,” explains Claudio Tschätsch, who is responsible for ESG and Sustainable Finance issues at Drees & Sommer. The updated study therefore ensures that credit institutions are fully up to date in the documentation of their taxonomy compliance and that they fulfill the requirements as completely as possible. In addition to its fundamental recommendations, the study also contains detailed and transparent criteria for the asset classes Residential, Office, Retail, Logistics and Hotel. The analysis has been based on the requirements of national legislation and also taken into account the provisional recommendations for the revision of the EU taxonomy and the requirements on zero-emission buildings in compliance with the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EBPD).
Decisive Criterion: Energy Performance of Buildings
To be eligible for the top 15 percent of a property class, residential buildings, for example, must fulfill the requirements of the energy performance classes A+ or A, with a calculated final energy demand of 30 or 50 kWh per square meter and year respectively. Building energy performance is an essential criterion for non-residential buildings too. The relevant legislation, such as the German Energy Saving Ordinance (Energieeinsparverordnung – EnEV) and the German Buildings Energy Act (Gebäudeenergiegesetz – GEG), does not set a common overall maximum allowable threshold for all applicable and regulated building usages. Consequently, the authors of the study recommend calculating the energy performance of non-residential buildings based on asset class-specific evaluation. For office buildings, the area-specific calculated final energy demand for electricity and heating should be between 140 and 240 kWh per square meter and year, whereas the annual primary energy demand of a top 15 percent hotel building would be in a range between 213 and 233 kWh per square meter.
For more information about the top 15 percent benchmarking and a summary of the results, please consult the vdp website.
About the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp)
The Association of German Pfandbrief Banks is one of the five associations that make up the German Banking Industry Committee. It represents the most important providers of financing for residential and commercial property construction as well as the government and public sector institutions.
