Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices are critical to real estate investment according to a report from The Counselors of Real Estate. The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated this trend as risk management, resiliency, transparency and social engagement are ever-growing important issues.

The report, 2020-21 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate, attributes the rise in ESG practices to a growing influence of millennial investors, innovations in the measurement and tracking of ESG performance, and the wider acceptance of the risks of climate change among other reasons.

"While COVID-19 has underscored the importance of ESG issues, this shift is a result of trends already underway," said Michel Couillard, 2020 chair of The Counselors of Real Estate. "Perhaps most explicitly, issues of climate change and the associated risks to investors has snapped into focus within the ESG lens. In recent years there has been a shift in American, Australian, EU, and Asian perspective on ESG and climate change, with a World Economic Forum poll finding a majority of Americans feeling climate change should be a top priority for the government, a 14% rise from four years ago."