EU, Regulation and Investors Among Drivers in "Perfect Storm” Towards Sustainability says CBRE Leader

Rachael McGinley is the Head of Sustainability CBRE, a commercial real estate company originating in the United States with transcontinental operations. 

She has amassed 15 years of experience in the area of sustainability and engineering. 

She spoke at Portobello Institute’s third instalment of a webinar series exploring the role of sustainability in facilities management. You can watch the webinar recording here.

Ahead of the event, Rachael sat down with Portobello Institute FM Lecturer Bernard MacOscair to discuss what she and CBRE are seeing in terms of sustainability in the real estate sector and the key drivers of this. 

“ESG is a huge topic for CBRE at the moment. In my role, I look after sustainability and provide consultancy services to our clients.  

“That might be people selling property, looking to lease property, operating and managing property or even designing property," she said. 

When asked where she was seeing the main drive for sustainable practice, Rachael said that at the moment it’s a “perfect storm”. 

“There’s definitely pressure from investors. We’re also seeing a huge increase in the legislation surrounding sustainability and climate change from the Irish government and the EU.  

“Also, from occupiers as well. There are definitely huge opportunities,” she said. 

And while there are encouraging trends of sustainability, Rachael says they are still pushing it, clients. 

“As a consultant, the customer is always right to a certain extent. CBRE is an organisation. 

“We always like to meet the client where they are and then gently show them the benefits of being more sustainable. 

“It’s a challenge, in the Irish market, to have the capacity, time, skills and right people to be able to make the big leaps in terms of sustainability that the government and investors are asking us to do, because it takes time to create a good strategy, whether it’s a business strategy or ESG strategy,” she said. 

Watch back our previous FM webinars on our YouTube channel. 

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