The investment was made through the Bridges Sustainable Growth Funds and supplemented by further investments from MSCI and Fairview Equity Partners
Bridges Fund Management (Bridges) has made a majority investment in Evora Global, a UK-based consultancy that advises clients on the sustainability and climate risk of their real estate portfolios.
The investment was made through the Bridges Sustainable Growth Funds and is supplemented by further investments by financial data provider MSCI and tech investor Fairview Equity Partners.
Emma Thorne, a partner at UK-based impact investor Bridges, said the investment reflected the significant contribution of real estate to global carbon emissions.
“Evora’s tools and services can play an important role in reducing emissions and building a more sustainable economy. We think there’s a significant commercial and impact opportunity here,” she said.
Evora provides consultancy on sustainability and climate risk of property portfolios. Central to its business is its own software, SIERA, which enables clients to acquire and track ESG data, optimise building efficiency, draw up accurate performance reports and make investment decisions based on ESG criteria.
The company says around 8,000 buildings around the world currently use SIERA. Clients include property investors and managers, Invesco Real Estate, Hines and M&G among others.
Emissions from buildings
René Veerman, head of real assets at MSCI, said combining Evora’s tools for climate data management and advisory services with MSCI’s climate risk models and indexes would strengthen the global investment process for real estate investment.
In 2021, the operation of buildings accounted for 30% of global final energy consumption and 27% of total energy sector carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Direct emissions from buildings accounted for 8% of total emissions, while 19% came from indirect emissions from the production of electricity and heat. Both energy consumption in, and emissions from buildings are now above 2019 levels, following a fall in 2020, due to the impact of the Covid crisis.
Against this backdrop, and with regulations on emissions and their reporting tightening, especially in Europe, services provided by firms such as Evora are increasingly in demand.
The fresh investment will improve the company’s capacity to support its clients and improve its technology and services, according to Chris Bennett, Evora’s managing director.
“When we founded this business over a decade ago, people didn’t want to talk about climate risk or sustainability. It was a real battle to even get a meeting. Now, we are experiencing huge demand for our services globally as the world has woken up to the risks of climate change,” he said.
