The perspective of Sustainability Reporting Phenomena in the Real Estate Markets

The transitioning of the disclosure of non-financial information from voluntary to mandatory reporting in the European Union also has emerging trends in the sustainability reporting field. This can be evidenced in various jurisdictions that more governmental bodies are exerting pressure for more corporate social responsibility to promote sustainable development. Similarly, the evidence that more Finnish companies are pursuing actions that facilitate the integration of sustainability issues to their business strategies, shows that there is a steadier progress of sustainability reporting and the gap in reporting between the leading and the lagging industry sector is also narrowing. However, with limited research on the state and future of sustainability reporting in the Finnish real estate sector, using semi-structured expert interviews with the futures wheel study method to capture and illustrate the findings, this study investigates the perspective of the real estate professionals on the impacts of three sustainability reporting phenomena; mandatory reporting, external assurance of sustainability information and the integrated reporting framework on corporate real estate investment and management strategies in the Finnish real estate markets.The study shows that the introduction of mandatory reporting would likely increase transparency and comparability that allows best business practices within the sector which require optimal resource, data and compliance risk management. In addition, the external assurance of sustainability information would increase stakeholder engagement and the reliability of data, as the integrated reporting framework has potential in communicating company strategies with a holistic view that would increase company brand value. However, the rise in sustainability data and information requires that it is readily available to enhance the efficiency of the real estate markets and its use by the providers to spark innovations.