CNS-Responsible-Investing 2024 - Flipbook - Page 16
RESPONSIBLE INVESTING
Listed Real Estate
Strategy Overview
Cohen & Steers is one of the world’s largest active
investors in global listed real estate securities, o昀昀ering
clients access to a diverse and expanding market. With
one of the most experienced REIT specialist teams,
we leverage deep fundamental research and direct
engagement with management teams to identify
opportunities across property sectors and geographies.
Our approach is grounded in the belief that listed real
estate can deliver strong absolute and relative returns,
attractive income, and portfolio diversi昀椀cation. We aim
to provide 昀氀exible exposure to real estate through liquid,
transparent vehicles that bene昀椀t from decades of market
evolution and access to new property types and regions.
Our ESG Integration Approach
Across our Listed Real Estate Securities platform, we
identify and assess key ESG factors based on industry
standards, company knowledge, and materiality to each
property type. Analysts evaluate these factors using
internal research and external data, determining the
appropriate weights across environmental, social, and
governance pillars.
We assign ESG scores to companies across the investable
universe, applying our methodology consistently and
updating scores on an ongoing basis. These scores
are primarily driven by proprietary ESG research and
are further enhanced with third-party data to form a
comprehensive view of company practices.
ESG scores are integrated directly into investment
decisions through both implicit adjustments to growth
expectations and explicit adjustments to discount rates
used in our valuation models.
We engage with company boards and management
teams to better understand their practices, inform our
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COHEN & STEERS | RESPONSIBLE INVESTING
investment decisions, and support long-term value
creation. We track and monitor engagement outcomes,
participate in shareholder resolutions and proxy voting,
and contribute to industry dialogue through involvement
with organizations such as GRESB and regional real
estate associations.
Evolution and Progress
Since introducing ESG scoring to our investment
process in 2017, Cohen & Steers has continued to
evolve and strengthen our ESG integration practices.
We have enhanced the quality and utility of ESG data
through improved mapping, automation, and ingestion
processes to streamline data delivery and adopt scalable
application programming interfacing solutions. These
upgrades ensure our investment teams have timely,
structured datasets to assess ESG risks and opportunities
with greater precision.
In 2024, we launched an enhanced ESG Scorecard
for REITs, marking a signi昀椀cant step forward in our
proprietary ESG integration. The updated framework
combines raw data from top-tier third-party sources,
with analyst-driven insights to produce 昀椀nal scores on
the most material ESG factors. This re昀椀ned process
allows for greater di昀昀erentiation across companies,
introducing dynamic scoring that incorporates
direct emissions data, carbon targets, and relevant
climate risks and a range of other metrics related to
environmental, social and governance topics.
By aligning structured, forward-looking ESG metrics
with real-time insights from engagements, the new
Scorecard provides a more accurate and actionable view
of responsible investing performance. This advancement
reinforces our commitment to integrating responsible
investing into research, valuation, and active ownership,
supporting better risk-adjusted returns and investment
outcomes.
