Using ESG Data for CRE Strategies: Q&A with Measurabl’s Maureen Waters
The integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into commercial real estate (CRE) decision-making has expanded rapidly. This trend is driven by growing awareness of climate change, rising regulatory requirements, and the financial benefits associated with sustainable investments. Accurate data is vital because environmental factors, such as energy efficiency, carbon emissions, and climate resilience, are both the most quantifiable aspects of ESG and the most directly impactful on financial performance.
Maureen Waters, president of Measurabl, an ESG data management platform for real estate, addressed how ESG issues are impacting the CRE industry, the progress already made in data-driven investment decisions, and the promising future of ESG-related real estate technology, among other topics.
CM: Congratulations on your promotion to President. Please share how your professional background in real estate has shaped your role as a leader in real estate technology?
MW: My professional journey began at a tech startup right out of college, which was later acquired by CBRE. This experience sparked my passion for innovation and provided early exposure to commercial real estate (CRE). The dynamic startup environment ignited my passion for building efficient systems from the ground up and prepared me for leadership roles centered on transformation and growth.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked across real estate in a variety of roles, from chief strategy officer at Cushman & Wakefield and head of real estate at Bill Gates Investments to president of Ten-X, and partner at Metaprop. A recurring theme in these roles has been the slow pace of technology adoption in real estate – a challenge I found particularly frustrating when working with some of the industry’s top firms. This inefficiency inspired my goal to drive digitization as the most impactful way to modernize the industry.
My decades-long experience across real estate’s key players – owners, operators, and investors – has revealed universal pain points that I’ve leveraged to guide teams toward innovation solutions. This background not only informs my leadership at Measurabl today but also deepens my understanding and passion for the industry, and has motivated me to continue to leverage technology to improve it.
CM: What’s your perspective on where female-representation is within real estate? What areas does the industry need to improve on still?
MW: I believe that real estate has made significant strides in supporting a diverse workforce, especially within the sustainability segment of the industry, which has been the most inclusive area I’ve worked in. It is a refreshing change coming from the venture capital area which tends to be male-dominated. Representation is a broad term, however, and whilst there have been improvements within the industry in terms of general representation, there is still much to do.
Institutional investors have been instrumental in driving change, applying pressure for diversity that cascades to service providers. This pressure is a force for positive change and should be embraced by all within the industry for transformative impact.
CM: As an ESG-focused real estate technology firm, how are ESG issues impacting the commercial real estate sector today?
MW: We focus on how sustainability issues are reshaping the CRE sector, and particularly the push to quantify carbon emissions across the property lifecycle. By using quality data to measure and manage a building’s carbon output and financial performance, the industry can make more sustainable, informed investments that drive decarbonization.
Data is central to CRE firms’ ability to establish their strategy and sustainability goals. Without robust data collection and management, meaningful reporting simply isn’t possible. This is where Measurabl has been leading the industry – helping firms establish the groundwork for sustainability reporting and optimization across their real estate portfolios. Tracking quality building data is essential, but the next phase involves utilizing this data for decarbonizing buildings, which opens pathways to green financing premiums, grants, and indexes, creating significant opportunities and shifts in the financial markets.
CM: What has been accomplished thus far, what are the opportunities and challenges, and what remains to be done?
MW: Our greatest accomplishment this year was the launch of our new platform, Navigate, which marks a significant leap forward in empowering the real estate industry to address evolving challenges. Our next-generation platform streamlines investment-grade data collection, benchmarking, decarbonization, and reporting, enabling real estate stakeholders to achieve their sustainability goals with greater efficiency and precision.
We also achieved key milestones on the financial side of real estate, where ESG-focused financial products like green indexes, green financing, and green insurance premiums present significant, largely untapped opportunities. Through partnerships with FTSE Russell, Preqin, and Bosch’s Susteco platform, we’ve addressed critical ESG challenges when it comes to understanding value and risk mitigation.
With FTSE Russell, Measurabl now powers $9.2 billion in green indexes with asset-level ESG data, supporting better investment decisions while advancing sustainability in capital markets.
The Preqin partnership brings unprecedented transparency to private real estate, providing global carbon and energy metrics for nearly 100,000 properties to drive smarter, more sustainable investments. Through Susteco, we integrate ESG tools into a unified smart building ecosystem, helping managers optimize portfolios and streamline compliance.
Opportunities lie in scaling these innovations globally, but challenges include ensuring industry-wide adoption while navigating changing regulations. Moving forward, we will continue to improve data quality and integration, helping real estate stakeholders meet ambitious sustainability targets and achieve real business outcomes.
CM: Tell us about the recently announced strategic partnership between Measurabl and FTSE Russell. What does it bring to your company?
MW: The partnership between Measurabl and FTSE Russell marks a significant advancement for both companies, mainly through enhanced data capabilities. This collaboration will provide us with a much greater volume of data while also elevating its quality, which is an essential aspect of our reporting.
The primary goal of the green index is to utilize real, actionable data against established benchmarks. Access to high-quality, comprehensive data will allow us to create more precise and effective indexes, enhancing our offering and the transparency of ESG. This provides our clients with actionable insights, empowering informed investment decisions and meaningful sustainability initiatives. Ultimately, the partnership helps us to provide consistent, comparable asset-level ESG data to a wider audience, addressing a significant challenge within the market whilst enabling capital to flow more effectively into sustainable real estate investments.
CM: Looking into your crystal ball, what does the evolution of ESG-related real estate technology look like three years from now?
MW: Three years from now, I envision ESG-related real estate technology will likely be defined by data platforms like Measurabl Quantum, the world’s first Real Estate ESG Cloud for all real estate stakeholders. With the largest, most granular sustainability dataset in real estate–tracking 273M MTCO2e across 110,000 properties in 93 countries spanning 18 billion square feet–Quantum is on track to reshape the industry.
The Quantum Cloud will not only deliver higher-quality data but also enhance accessibility for the entire industry. One of Matt Ellis’s (Measurabl’s co-founder and CEO) key ambitions is to achieve complete transparency in data from meter to market, and I believe Quantum will be instrumental in realizing this vision. By providing reliable, real-time insights, Quantum will empower stakeholders to make informed decisions, driving progress toward increased sustainability and accountability across the real estate sector.
CM: Looking ahead, how can female leaders like yourself ensure they are paving the road for more women to follow in their footsteps?
MW: For me, paving the way for future female leaders is centered around the power of mentorship. I actively engage in mentoring and am currently working closely with five remarkable women, some of whom are at similar stages in their careers as I am. I’ve developed a comprehensive program to guide them in understanding their journeys and the steps they can take to advance or pivot their careers.
I’ve been fortunate to have had outstanding mentors who supported my growth throughout my journey, and I’m committed to paying it forward. Mentorship is more crucial now than ever in our increasingly remote world, where building relationships can be challenging due to the lack of face-to-face interaction, but by continuing to share insights and forge relationships, I believe female leaders can create a more inclusive and sustainable environment for the next generation.
