Welcome - February 2021

Technology has been a lifeline for the real estate industry through the COVID-19 pandemic. It has allowed most of us to continue working from home, interacting with colleagues and clients via the online meeting services that we have come to know and (mostly) love.  

Here at INREV, technology has helped keep all our services operating, from indices and research to the more interactive areas of training and events.  

Technology has been a lifeline for the real estate industry through the COVID-19 pandemic

Of course, the technologies that have helped so much during the pandemic didn’t just appear by magic – most already existed and were being used to varying extents across the business.  But the pandemic has brought home how much difference they can make.  And as many of INREV’s activities revolve around collecting and crunching data, we are inevitably focusing more and more on how technology can also be used to improve these processes.

Such changes are reflected in this edition of IQ, which includes articles on INREV’s IT Roadmap, the ethics around data use and the Asset Level Index (ALI) – as discussed in the member profile for Nick Blakemore. 

The IT Roadmap is at the heart of our technological efforts because it is transforming the way INREV collects and stores information, making it much easier for members to input their data while also bringing greater efficiency to the production of indices and other analytical outputs.  Members contributing to the Asset Level Index will already know how streamlined the data input process has become and how it’s possible to generate analysis at the touch of a button.

The IT Roadmap is at the heart of our technological efforts because it is transforming the way INREV collects and stores information

These innovations are crucial as INREV works with increasingly granular data, moving beyond the vehicle-level analysis that dominated until recently.  This deepening of the information we provide promises to build greater transparency in the non-listed space and plug some of the gaps in market coverage that investors and managers are demanding.  For example, we have started a pilot project to link key sustainability KPI’s of buildings to their financial performance.

This deepening of the information we provide promises to build greater transparency in the non-listed space and plug some of the gaps in market coverage that investors and managers are demanding

For all the technological advances, I’ve still very much missed the dialogue with our members face-to-face.  So wherever in Europe we can most readily meet once again, I promise we will be there.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this edition of IQ.

Lonneke Löwik
CEO, INREV