CSS

As climate risks intensify across Europe, insurance is emerging as a powerful lens through which resilience is measured, priced, and rewarded. This session explores whether insurance premiums are becoming a de facto ESG metric—translating climate exposure and adaptive capacity directly into financial outcomes. We examine how underwriting models are evolving, the growing role of front-end climate and asset-level data, and what this means for risk pricing.  

The discussion will assess how resilient assets may outperform over time through lower premiums, improved insurability, and stronger liquidity, while vulnerable assets face rising costs or exclusion. Investors and developers will gain insight into downside protection strategies, asset design choices, and portfolio implications in a market where access to insurance increasingly underpins value. The session connects climate science, underwriting, and capital markets to reveal how resilience is reshaping investment decisions. 

From target to delivery, the greatest risks to carbon, energy and resilience performance often emerge not in design, but in contracts, procurement and execution. This session explores the persistent gap between design intent and operational reality, examining why projects so often fail to deliver what was promised.  

It will consider how contractual structures, value engineering and supply chain decisions can undermine performance targets, and how these risks can be better managed. The session will also address tracking and verifying outcomes through delivery, and the legal implications of supply chain due diligence, including sourcing decisions and embodied carbon claims, to ensure commitments are realised in practice. 

As ESG commitments move from aspiration to obligation, real estate investors face growing scrutiny around governance, disclosure and accountability. This session examines: 

• the evolving legal landscape of ESG compliance 

• the risks associated with inaccurate disclosure, inadequate oversight and poorly defined transition plans 

• director-level liability for ESG and transition planning and expectation of the  

• board oversight of delivery rather than just intent 

• the extent to which greenwashing claims are being pursued, particularly where transition plans are overstated or unsupported 

• whether enforcement is driving meaningful change across the sector 

Bringing together legal, investment and ESG expertise, the discussion will provide practical insight into how robust governance, transparent disclosure and defensible transition plans can help manage risk, ensure compliance and maintain investor confidence in an increasingly regulated market. 

Heat networks are moving from niche infrastructure to a core component of the UK’s heat decarbonisation strategy. With new regulations now in force – and more to come, including on technical standards and heat network zoning—the implications for real estate developers and operators are immediate and significant.

This session provides an overview of the key regulatory changes and explores what these mean in practice for real estate investors and owners. It will examine when heat networks are appropriate, how they can be integrated into new and existing developments, and the commercial, technical, legal and operational considerations that shape successful delivery.

Investor approaches to greening real assets span a wide spectrum—from doing the bare minimum to comply with regulation, to deep retrofits designed to meaningfully reduce climate impact. This session explores what truly matters to investors across this range of ambition and how differing priorities shape capital allocation, asset design, and operational decisions. We examine how owners, developers, lenders, and asset managers weigh cost, risk, return, and reputation when assessing sustainability strategies, and how these considerations translate into real-world outcomes for the built environment.  

The discussion will also tackle: 

•  Has political fatigue dampened sustainability momentum or simply reshaped it?  
• The sentiment divide differences across Europe, UK and US capital?  
•  How occupier demand, leasing behaviour, and willingness to pay influence investment decisions and long-term asset value? 

UKGBC’s Regenerative Places programme aims to shift built environment practice towards more regenerative, place-based outcomes. Focusing on both retrofit and housing-led regeneration, the emerging Framework considers the pathways, actions and stakeholders needed to realise the long-term potential of regenerative approaches, and support healthier, more fulfilling, and resilient places for all. 

• How does thinking through the context of “place” support regenerative outcomes?

• How can communities, local councils and industry work together to realise interconnected benefits across health, wellbeing, economic vitality, and biodiversity?

• How do we create the enabling conditions that ensure every project fosters long-term, positive outcomes for people, planet, and place.

In shallow and illiquid markets, developers face a distinct challenge: how to future-proof existing assets while protecting returns and maintaining flexibility in the business plan. This session explores how targeted retrofitting strategies can unlock value in standing buildings, aligning environmental performance with commercial outcomes rather than treating sustainability as a cost centre. 

Focusing on practical interventions, the discussion will examine how energy efficiency upgrades, fabric improvements, and smart building systems can be phased to remain accretive to a developer’s business plan enhancing income resilience, reducing operational risk, and supporting exit value in markets with limited depth.  

• What is the role of growing sustainability-linked loans? 

• How do credible retrofit pathways and measurable performance targets improve financing terms and strengthen lender confidence? 

With market-facing insight into investor and occupier expectations in shallow markets, we ask how whole-lifecycle carbon assessments and embodied and operational carbon analysis can inform retrofit decisions, prioritise spend, and evidence impact. The speakers will explore how a robust carbon-led strategy can support financing, de-risk assets, and deliver long-term value.  

Solar power is becoming a central pillar of the UK’s decarbonisation and clean energy strategies, with Government committed to trebling solar capacity by 2030. For commercial real estate investors and developers, this creates a significant opportunity. Falling costs, improving performance and rapid innovation from high-efficiency panels to on-site storage and smart energy management are changing how solar can be integrated into buildings and portfolios. 

This session explores how solar power can support the real estate sector in reducing operational carbon and energy costs while helping the wider economy transition to a low-carbon future. It will explore practical considerations for new and existing developments, including design integration, grid connections, ownership and funding models, and interactions with evolving policy and regulation.

Since its introduction, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) has had a profound impact on how sustainability is defined, measured and reported across the property sector. Five years on, this session will reflect on what SFDR has realistically achieved in driving better environmental and social outcomes, and where it has fallen short. With the publication of the 2025 consultation, the panel will explore whether the original objectives of SFDR have shifted, how expectations of market participants are evolving, and whether the principle of “do no significant harm” remains fit for purpose in today’s regulatory and investment landscape.  

Speakers will examine how property strategies have adapted in response to Article 6, 8 and 9 classifications, and the practical challenges of implementation and disclosure. The discussion will also assess which certifications and frameworks are most relevant for investors seeking to evidence compliance and manage risk. Bringing together legal experts, developers and sustainability consultants, the session will offer a balanced, forward-looking view on the future direction of SFDR in real estate. 

As market conditions tighten and buyer scrutiny increases, preparing a real estate asset for exit has become more complex than timing alone. This session explores how liquidity is now shaped not just by location and income, but by sustainability credentials and future readiness. We will examine whether ESG performance is a decisive factor in pricing and deal velocity, or simply a threshold requirement to access core capital. 

The discussion will focus on how owners can future-proof assets when capital for major works is constrained. What signals matter most to buyers? How are sustainability risks and opportunities being measured today, and how consistent are those metrics across markets? We will also look at how core and core-plus investors view transition risk, stranded assets, and the credibility of forward plans. 

Finally, the session will explore whether mapping the next buyer’s ESG journey, even without immediate capex, can itself add value and improve exit outcomes. 

Much to the annoyance of linguists, Will Arnold argues that regenerative design is a verb, not a noun. It's a process we can all follow - on any project - to move us closer to the goal of doing more good with construction, rather than just minimising harm. 

In this keynote, Will will share a simple process he has developed to anchor all the amazing innovations, processes and mindsets that exist in industry today, and draw them together into a regenerative approach to building design and construction. 

Learning from examples taken from across the industry, see how his three pillars of systems thinking - place, time and influence - can be combined to create buildings that heal our planet.