A strong GRESB rating doesn’t just improve investor trust. It can influence fund inflows, reputation, and your ability to meet regulatory frameworks like CSRD.

But improving GRESB scores isn’t about guesswork. It’s about focus, teamwork, strategy, and precision.

This article walks you through 8 actionable strategies from utility data and submetering to certifications and stakeholder engagement, to stay ahead.

Whether you’re climbing toward 5 stars or closing key gaps, these tips are built for real results.

Introduction to GRESB and ESG Data

Why Your GRESB Score Matters More Than Ever in 2025

For commercial real estate portfolio managers, the GRESB score is no longer just an ESG reporting box to tick. It’s a signal to the market. One that influences everything from investment reputation and fund visibility, to how capital markets view your long-term risk profile.

“As ESG expectations rise and CSRD kicks in, 2025 GRESB results will separate the leaders from the laggards in real estate.”

GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) has become one of the standards for assessing sustainability performance across property portfolios. It allows companies to benchmark their sustainability metrics, assess climate risks, and back up ESG claims.

The average scores in the GRESB Real Estate Benchmark provide insights into performance metrics across various sectors and categories, such as Standing Investments and Development, highlighting overall sustainability performance and progress toward key environmental goals.

First time hearing about GRESB? Before diving into the action-oriented tips below, get the fundamentals straight in our introductory piece, What is GRESB, then come back here to put the insights into practice.

Whether you’re trying to climb from 3 stars to 5, or simply want to stop wasting  points in areas like stakeholder engagement, utility data, or data completeness these tips are especially for you.

Below, you’ll find 8 targeted tips to help you improve your GRESB score. These range from technical upgrades to strategic reporting moves.

So let’s dive into our actionable tips.

1. Leverage the new GRESB Score Contribution Dashboard

Just a few months ago, GRESB introduced a powerful new feature that’s changing how portfolio managers approach ESG performance: the Score Contribution Dashboard.

This dashboard reveals which individual assets helped you win points, and which ones dragged you down. For the first time, you can trace the exact asset-level contribution to your final GRESB score.

Instead of guessing where to focus your upcoming ESG upgrades, you now have a data-driven tool. One that shows precisely which asset need attention, and which strategies will deliver the biggest impact.

Here’s how to make the most of it:

• Start with a portfolio-wide gap analysis. Compare the 2024 results to the new 2025 asset-level insights. Especially properties with below-average performance indicators or incomplete data coverage.
• Prioritize underperforming assets. These are your fastest routes to score improvement, whether through better energy conusmption data (see tip 2), targeted retrofits, or building certifications (see tip 7).
• Use peer benchmarking. The dashboard lets you compare how each property stacks up against others in similar sectors and regions.

2. Get serious about utility data (and use submetering to do it)

Are you still submitting estimated consumption figures or relying on outdated utility bills? Then you’re leaving very valuable GRESB points on the table.

GRESB’s performance component prefers traceable, high-quality data.

Above all, utility data is one of the most heavily weighted categories. From greenhouse gas emissions to energy consumption, your data needs to be complete and verifiable.

Nevertheless collecting data at the asset level can be complex and time-consuming, creating complexity that standardisation can help resolve.

Why GRESB cares about actual data (not assumptions):

• Traceability: Can your energy consumption data be linked to a specific meter, from a specific building?
• Frequency: Are you reporting once a year or monitoring consumption continuously?
• Coverage: Are all your real estate assets, including tenant spaces, included?

Too many portfolios depend on hunches, GRESB demands data. Not estimates.

Submetering = better data, better GRESB score

By installing submeters on major loads (HVAC, lighting, compressors, … ), you can track energy use in real-time. This gives you:

• Data granularity
• Visibility into inefficiencies and performance indicators
• Reliable inputs for GRESB’s asset-level assessment

Submetering also helps boost your data coverage, which is critical for improving the energy and GHG indicators within the GRESB real estate assessment. The more complete your data, the higher your GRESB rating can climb.

And it’s not just GRESB, submetering is equally valuable for BREEAM, where grannular utility data also supports higher certification scores.

How nanoGrid makes this easy

At nanoGrid, we help clients gain more than 17.5 GRESB points by delivering the most accurate, real-time, verified utility data across electricity, gas, water, and heating. Our on-site hardware and SaaS solution ensures:

• We get the data from every meter, regardless of their age, type or manufacturer
• Automated integration into GRESB reporting tools
• Audit-ready logs with zero gaps or estimates

For portfolios managing dozens (or hundreds) of sites, this is a scalable way to collect asset-level data, comply with international reporting frameworks, while boosting your sustainability performance, without relying third parties or utility providers.

Want to see how this ties into broader energy strategy? Explore our utility data management and Submetering guides.

3. Improve Data Coverage, Quality & Consistency

For your GRESB score, it’s not just about what data you submit. It’s more about how complete, consistent, and reliable that data really is.

The GRESB performance component puts strong emphasis on data coverage. In fact, it evaluates how much of your real estate assessment is based on actual figures (versus estimates), the granularity of that data is (e.g. building vs. portfolio level), and how well it’s reported year-over-year.

And here’s the truth: even well-managed portfolios often lose points here.

How to level up your performance indicators:

With platforms like nanoGrid, you can automate this process. Our 360° approach to utility data delivers traceable, real-time utility data directly from any type of meter — automatically tagged by asset and utility type,  and formatted for direct ESG submission.

This kind of consistency doesn’t only improve your GRESB rating. It builds internal confidence in your numbers and helps avoid late-night surprises during audit season.

Want to know how this supports the bigger picture? Read how utility data management enables energy efficiency and ESG reporting at scale.

4. Develop a Climate Resilience Strategy Beyond Net Zero targets

To earn points in GRESB’s management component and to meet today’s standards. Climate strategies must show performance, under frameworks like CRREM, SFDR, and CSRD.

What GRESB wants to see:

• Specific net zero targets tied to carbon performance metrics
• Clear timelines for implementation (not just 2050 end goals)
• Evidence that your targets are aligned with global climate pathways
• Integration with your broader risk management and business planning processes

In other words: it’s not about having a goal. It’s about showing how you’re going to get there.

Bonus: Align your plan with CRREM pathways

GRESB also recognizes companies that map their decarbonisation strategies to science-based benchmarks like the CRREM (Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor).

When you align your investment and retrofit plans with CRREM pathways, you:

• Demonstrate climate risk awareness
• Address both transition risk and physical climate risk
• Position your strategy against market expectations and global temperature rise targets

Want to understand how CRREM works and why it matters? Read our clear CRREM guide for real estate professionals

A strong climate strategy helps you future-proof your real estate assets and demonstrate long-term continuity. Which is a growing focus for capital markets, investors, and ESG performance.

Link it, prove it, and monitor it. That’s the climate strategy GRESB wants to see.

5. Proactively Address ESG “Blind Spots”

When it comes to GRESB, most companies just focus on the obvious: energy use, GHG emissions, certifications, and perhaps some stakeholder engagement.

But GRESB rewards balanced ESG performance, and portfolios that miss secondary indicators often lose points without realising it.

These blind spots don’t just drag your GRESB score down. They weaken your overall ESG credibility in front of investors, regulators, and tenants.

Common blind spots in GRESB assessments:

• Waste management: Are you reporting actual waste data by asset and tracking diversion rates? It’s a common blind spot, one we hear about often in conversations with our clients.
• Water consumption: Is your coverage complete, or are you still relying on averages?
• Embodied carbon: Are you accounting for construction materials or major renovations in performance claims?
• Stakeholder feedback loops: Do your tenant engagement efforts actually inform your ESG strategy?
• Social and governance policies: Do you have clear, documented policies on DEI, ethics, and employee engagement?

These issues arise both the management and performance components of the GRESB real estate assessment. While each of those may only carry a few points on their own, together they can determine your overall GRESB rating.

This is where energy data platforms like nanoGrid also offer value: once your energy, water, and emissions data are fully traceable and asset-specific, other ESG metrics (like waste and Scope 3 contributions) become easier to compile and report.

6. Transform Stakeholder Engagement from Nice-To-Have to Strategy

In GRESB assessments, stakeholder engagement is a core expectation. Yet many portfolio managers still treat it as a checkbox: send a tenant survey, hold an annual meeting, file the report. Done.

But as it’s already clear, GRESB rewards quality over formality. It evaluates how well you engage with investors, tenants, and other stakeholders, and what you do with that input.

Here’s the key shift: engagement should be structured, consistent, and strategy-aligned. In particular with tenants, where the biggest engagement gap often exists.

The tenant dilemma in action

Let’s be honest: tenants are often left out of ESG efforts entirely. Each GRESB submission season exposes a blind spot: owners must supply tenant-level utility data to regulators and to investors, 95 % of whom now consider ESG metrics, yet up to 80 % of a building’s energy use sits in leased areas they can’t measure (source: GRESB).

Without trust or incentives, tenants often hold back data, leaving both sides in the dark.

We see and hear this all the time. Buildings where shared spaces are optimised, but tenant-controlled areas remain black boxes. That gap translates into missing Scope 1 & 2 data, unclaimed savings, and lower scores across multiple GRESB categories.

At nanoGrid we remove the friction in data-sharing. Tenants get free access to dashboards where they can monitor their usage in real time, showcasing the value it offer.

7. Implement (or Improve) Building Certifications

Building certifications remain one of the most direct ways to boost your GRESB score, for GRESB’s performance component. It recognises a wide range of globally respected certifications, including BREEAM, LEED, WELL, HQE, and DGNB. But it’s not just about having a certification. The GRESB score for buildings is based on:

• The number of certified assets within your portfolio
• The certification type (design vs. operational)
• The coverage and how recently those certifications were achieved.

So if your portfolio includes high-performing assets that are not yet certified, you may be leaving some quick-win points on the table.

How to start:

• Prioritise assets with high energy consumption or older stock that may benefit most from upgrades.
• Target buildings that contribute most negatively to your Score Contribution Dashboard.
• Ensure documentation is clean, current, and verifiable.

Certifications help future-proof assets against market expectations on net-zero targets, carbon risk, and ESG reporting under CSRD.

This combined with traceable utility data and performance metrics, certifications can create a multiplier effect. By boosting credibility across multiple assessment categories.

8. Master the Year-Over-Year Improvement Game

GRESB doesn’t just measure what you’ve done, it looks closely at how you’re improving. That’s why mastering the it year over year is essential if you want to move from 3 to 4 (or 5) GRESB stars.

Why it matters:

Within the GRESB real estate assessment, there’s a specific metric called Like-for-Like (LfL) change. It compares your portfolio’s current energy consumption, GHG emissions, and water use against the previous year’s baseline. This accounts for two full points in the scoring model, and it’s benchmarked against your peers (source: GRESB).

That means if other portfolios are improving faster than you, even stable performance can hurt your relative scores.

Some practical tips to win the improvement game:

• Set internal KPIs based on your previous GRESB results.
• Target underperforming assets with tailored interventions based on your Score Contribution Dashboard.
• Document all actions and outcomes: LED upgrades, HVAC adjustments, tenant behaviour campaigns, etc.

For more mature portfolios already performing well, this can get tricky. You’re closer to the theoretical efficiency ceiling. That’s where real-time monitoring, submetering, and advanced alerts make the difference, spotting those improvements others might miss.

At nanoGrid, we help clients capture these improvements with minute-level utility data, cross-site benchmarking, and automated reporting that makes trend analysis effortless.

Improvement is never accidental, it’s monitored.

Conclusion: GRESB Success isn’t just measured, It’s made

Sustainability practices are essential for real estate entities in implementing effective environmental, social, and governance measures. These practices are evaluated through various assessments, such as the GRESB Rating system, which benchmarks performance and encourages transparency and improvement in sustainability efforts among participants.

Improving your GRESB score isn’t a once-a-year strategy. It’s the result of clear priorities, structured improvements, and consistent data strategies across your portfolio.

Whether it’s boosting data coverage, addressing climate risk, or improving your stakeholder engagement, every point you earn reflects something deeper: transparency, accountability, and operational performance that investors trust.

And the best part? These improvements don’t just influence your GRESB rating. They strengthen your overall position across other ESG frameworks like CRREM, BREEAM, and CSRD.

So treat GRESB like what it really is: not a reporting burden, but a roadmap for value creation in the real estate sector.