In 2021, the Observatoire de l’Immobilier Durable (OID) launched the European Sustainable Real Estate Initiative (ESREI), with the ambition of helping real estate stakeholders better understand ESG challenges at the European level and turn this knowledge into actions and opportunities.
In 2026, ESREI reached a new milestone. Faced with increasingly material climate-related challenges, an evolving regulatory framework in Europe and the continuous need to develop shared perspectives across countries, ESREI is strengthening its collective dimension. Working groups, new members, European and international collaborations, knowledge sharing and practical resources now shape the activities of its member community.
2026: A New Chapter for ESREI
The year 2026 marked a significant evolution in how the initiative operates, driven by a clear ambition: to do more with and for ESREI members.
New membership options have been introduced to accommodate different levels of engagement. The Basic package and Advanced membership (for OID members) and the ESREI Only option (for external organisations) now allow members both to access the resources produced and to actively participate in working groups, webinars and discussion sessions. The choice of level of participation therefore depends on members’ needs and their will and capacity to actively contribute to ESREI’s activities. This new organisation allowed the integration of new members, further enriching the diversity of organisations and professional backgrounds represented within the group.
One of the key developments in 2026 was the launch of collaborative working groups, designed to address practical challenges faced by real estate stakeholders operating in multiple European markets. The aim of these working groups is to define the scope of their activities, identify needs, compare practices, highlight national differences and collectively produce resources that can be directly used by the sector.
A Community Built on Both Its Members and a European Network
The longstanding engagement of ESREI members has been reaffirmed and strengthened this year. Regular exchanges help identify emerging needs, facilitate peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and steer ESREI’s activities towards the topics considered most relevant.
But the ESREI community extends beyond its members. Throughout the year, ESREI works with a network of experts, professional organisations, industry initiatives, and national and international stakeholders, who contribute in various ways: sharing expertise, taking part in interviews, speaking at webinars and events, contributing to research or pooling resources.
This dynamic was particularly shown at the ESREI Annual Conference on 19 May 2026, which brought together experts, investors and real estate professionals from different European countries in Paris. Organisations including the OECD, Swiss Re, Swiss Life Asset Managers, C40 Cities, GRESB, the CRREM Foundation and ULI Europe contributed to discussions centred on a key question: how can sustainability become a driver of resilience and value creation for European real estate? The event illustrated one of the main convictions guiding ESREI’s work: when facing challenges that go beyond national borders, developing shared references, comparing practices and facilitating the exchange of knowledge are essential to accelerating the sector’s transformation.
Observing Europe, Sharing Practices
This ambition to break down barriers between national approaches is also reflected in the ESREI’s European Tour. Through a series of interviews with national organisations, ESREI gives a voice to those monitoring real estate’s sustainability transition in their countries. Following several stops initiated in 2025, the Tour continued in 2026, notably in Austria, Belgium and France, with ÖGNI, the Belgian Green Building Council and Alliance HQE – France GBC.
Emerging regulations, market priorities, voluntary initiatives, challenges encountered and future outlooks: these discussions provide a better understanding of the dynamics specific to each country while identifying common challenges across Member States. They complement a broader range of resources published and made available to members throughout the year.
From Regulatory Monitoring to Practical, Actionable Resources
In a particularly dense and fast-evolving regulatory environment, ESREI continues its European regulatory monitoring activities. Members benefit from quarterly regulatory newsletters, covering major developments in areas such as sustainable finance, ESG reporting, energy, carbon, biodiversity and climate change adaptation. The objective is to provide a concise overview of regulatory developments at the European level, as well as how they are translated into national frameworks across Member States.
At the same time, ESREI is developing shorter formats to make key research findings more accessible: executive summaries of major studies produced by both ESREI and OID, articles, interviews, analyses and thematic resources complement the cross-country studies historically published by the initiative.
Furthermore, the year’s first working group, dedicated to the EU Taxonomy, developed an innovative pan-European guidance format. Indeed, applying the Taxonomy remains complex for the real estate sector, as its criteria rely on regulations, methodologies, standards and energy performance schemes that vary from one country to another. The ESREI working group therefore brought its members together from March to September to compare how these requirements are applied in practice across several European markets. Two complementary deliverables emerged from this work: a guide summarising the main findings and national specificities, and a dynamic Excel tool providing access to detailed information and enabling comparisons of practices across seven European countries. The guiding principle was to move beyond the European regulatory text towards a more operational understanding of its implementation, making it easier for stakeholders managing pan-European portfolios to assess Taxonomy alignment.
What’s Next? New Projects Already Underway
This collective momentum will continue throughout the final months of 2026 and into early 2027.
A new working group dedicated to climate change adaptation is starting. Following several years of methodological development led by OID in climate risk assessment, ESREI is seeking to place greater emphasis on moving from analysis to action: which solutions are actually being implemented in European buildings? What lessons can be learned from their implementation? What barriers remain? ESREI will launch a collection of European case studies and practical experiences, aiming to showcase exemplary projects and concrete solutions, as well as the conditions required to replicate them.
And that’s not all. Drawing on European data from OID’s 2026 Energy and Environmental Performance Barometer (BPE), which will be presented at a conference on 30 November, ESREI and its members will collaborate to produce an entirely new publication. By comparing the findings with practices from different markets, as well as national contexts and regulations, the publication will provide a more detailed interpretation of the European data produced by OID.
These initiatives build on one of the key messages expressed at the ESREI conference in May: as stakeholders seek to measure their progress and guide their investments, having access to comparable data and sharing a common language are becoming essential to achieving collective progress.
Building Collective Intelligence at the European Level
Through its activities, ESREI is gradually evolving from a resource centre focused on European sustainable real estate into a space for collaboration, knowledge sharing and cooperation among European stakeholders. All these developments in 2026 serve a common objective: to study the diversity of European practices and turn them into a shared source of collective knowledge and actionable solutions.
This ambition can only be achieved thanks to the commitment of those who bring the initiative to life. We therefore extend our warmest thanks to ESREI members, our partners, experts, and European and international organisations who actively contribute to our work and share their knowledge and experiences to support the development of these valuable resources
