CREFC Publishes Updated Sustainability Strategic Issues Monitor
July 28, 2025
The CRE Finance Council announced the fourth update of its Sustainability Trends in the Commercial Real Estate Finance Industry: Update Report, July 2025, which outlines sustainability-related risks and opportunities for the commercial real estate (CRE) sector.
The report investigates:
- Resiliency and efficiency standards, including the implications for insurance pricing, clean energy incentives, and decarbonization;
- Regulation, policy, and political dynamics, with accompanying outlook on deregulatory trends, legal challenges, and nation-wide policy fragmentation; and
- Emerging trends such as data center energy use and resiliency, nuclear power, and biodiversity investments.
CREFC's Property Risk & Resilience Committee, launched in 2021 as the Sustainability Initiative, recognized the need for a reliable monitoring system to help industry partners navigate the complicated U.S. sustainability landscape.
To address this need, CREFC collaborated with Oxford Analytica to develop the Strategic Issues Monitor (SIM)—a benchmark tool designed to identify, evaluate, and track macro sustainability trends that will most significantly impact the U.S. commercial real estate finance industry over the next three years.
- Given growing resiliency and energy needs, this monitoring system identifies both risks and opportunities for the commercial real estate industry.
CREFC’s Property Risk & Resilience Committee will continue to identify and evaluate risks and opportunities to CRE as the U.S. sustainability landscape evolves, including changes in regulation, policy, and technology.
Please contact Sairah Burki (sburki@crefc.org) with comments.