PERFORM Performance Metrics
Background
The green building community needs to accelerate action at greater scale. Existing buildings represent a substantial and critical opportunity for reducing the negative impact of buildings on the climate, on health and on our communities. However, advancing decarbonization, resource efficiency and social impact throughout the buildings sector has remained a challenge. Because existing buildings account for up to 80% of building stock, retrofits have an especially important role in improving environmental, social and economic performance. Driving the sustainability and resilience of existing real estate portfolios is not a distant goal but an immediate imperative. Whether driven by regulatory standards, responses to market demands or corporate sustainability commitments, organizations of all sizes are focusing on demonstrating impact. While many organizations have set ambitious sustainability targets, too few have achieved meaningful improvements or aligned their sustainability strategies with their publicly stated performance commitments.
Addressing this challenge has prompted the U.S. Green Building Council® (USGBC) and Green Business Certification Inc.™ (GBCI) to think differently, to reconsider how to engage existing building portfolios, many of which are not able or prepared to engage with a leadership standard like LEED® and others that are moving quickly to adapt to mandatory disclosure and reporting.
PERFORM offers a comprehensive and accessible path for owners and operators to improve real estate portfolio performance. PERFORM focuses on critical areas such as decarbonization, energy efficiency, water management, biodiversity, resilience, social impact and human health.
Recognizing organizations are at different stages of their sustainability journey, PERFORM is designed to engage a broad spectrum of real estate stakeholders from those who are beginning to address these challenges to those already implementing advanced sustainability measures.
As a low-barrier-to-entry program, PERFORM empowers organizations to set custom goals, track progress over time and verify performance outcomes. PERFORM’s flexible nature means participants are not required to meet predefined performance thresholds. Incremental improvements with custom goals — such as moving from underperformance to baseline standards across a large portfolio — can create significant benefits. As such, PERFORM is a complement to LEED certification, acknowledging not all buildings in a portfolio are ready to achieve a level of excellence across holistic metrics.
PERFORM’s performance metrics and technical requirements are aligned with industry standards, including LEED, and are structured to reflect best practice in real estate performance. However, these metrics and requirements are not rigid benchmarks, nor do they reflect a cutting edge “leadership” standard which may be aspirational for much of the market. They serve as a guidance framework for organizations seeking to improve performance at their own pace and demonstrate progress against their own goals.
For those ready to verify and showcase achievements, PERFORM offers an optional verification process, enabling organizations to receive third-party recognition for demonstrating improvement or for reaching self-defined milestones. This flexibility is especially important for organizations managing diverse portfolios, allowing them to demonstrate improved performance across a variety of asset types without requiring every asset within a portfolio meet the minimum requirements set for LEED-certified projects.
In summary, PERFORM supports the striving majority, those real estate owners and operators committed to making meaningful progress, regardless of where they start. By emphasizing personalized goal-setting and incremental improvement, PERFORM ensures every step forward contributes to broader environmental and social objectives. Whether using PERFORM as a roadmap for improvements or pursuing verification, organizations are empowered to track, measure and celebrate progress on their own terms.
Overview
PERFORM helps organizations manage and enhance the sustainability of real estate portfolios. Organizations can set goals, measure progress against defined targets as well as receive third-party verification from GBCI for demonstrating improvement and achieving targets. The program supports a range of portfolio-level metrics across the following eight categories: emissions, energy, water, waste, health, resilience, biodiversity and social impact.
PERFORM is available to any organization with operational real estate assets. Organizations can be a non-profit entity, a government agency, a listed or unlisted company, a fund, a direct investment portfolio, a joint venture, a special purpose vehicle or similar. To participate in the program, the organization must own, manage or control the real estate assets in the defined portfolio, and have more than one property in the portfolio.
A portfolio is defined as a collection of real estate assets (properties) owned, managed and/or controlled by the legal entity (organization) participating in the program. The properties should include both the building(s) and any land associated with the building(s). The defined portfolio must include all underlying properties associated with the performance goals, claims or targets being verified.
PERFORM’s engagement cycle includes the following steps:
Enroll in the program by creating a portfolio and selecting applicable performance criteria.
Track progress against selected performance criteria.
Verify performance by submitting for review and receive verification.
Continuously improve a portfolio's performance by adding performance metrics and/or creating new targets for previously verified metrics.
Why PERFORM?
PERFORM helps organizations manage and enhance the sustainability of entire real estate portfolios. Organizations can:
Set goals and measure progress against user-defined performance targets.
View guidance and access tools to improve performance.
Enhance transparency, credibility and accountability, and communicate performance improvements to stakeholders.
Receive third-party verification from GBCI for achieving milestones and demonstrating improvement.
PERFORM Performance Metrics Overview
This document outlines the performance categories and metrics that are available for an organization to track, report and verify across a portfolio. The metrics are organized within eight categories that reflect key material themes and impact areas driving sustainability action. All metrics are optional. Organizations may set targets for one or more metrics and submit for verification. There are no minimum thresholds associated with the metrics. Organizations define their own targets and may receive verification of performance against these user-defined targets.
Each metric is described using the following structure.
INTENT: The objective, benefit and importance of the metric.
DEFINITION: The meaning of the metric in the context of PERFORM.
UNITS OF MEASURE: Applicable units by which the metric may be measured.
VERIFICATION SCOPE: The performance outcomes that will be verified. Performance can be measured in two ways — absolute performance or change in performance. The verification scope articulates what will be verified for each approach.
Absolute performance for a reporting year
Performance change from a baseline year
Using Performance Approach A, organizations may track and seek verification for a single absolute value. Depending on the metric, this value may be a number (e.g., total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) or a percentage (e.g., waste diversion rate).
Using Performance Approach B, organizations may track and seek verification for the change in performance in the reporting year from a user-defined baseline year (e.g., GHG emission reduction of 5% in reporting year compared to baseline year). This is calculated in two ways depending on the performance metric.
Percentage Change: Change in performance from a baseline year:
RY = Reporting Year Value BY = Baseline Year Value
Percentage Point Change: Change in performance from a baseline year, calculated by the formula:
RY% = Reporting Year Value BY% = Baseline Year Value
REQUIREMENTS: The actions needed by the organization to report on a metric and submit for verification.
VERIFICATION EVIDENCE: The documentation required to support verification review.
Documents that are applicable at an organizational level and consistent for all properties in the portfolio. The following documents may be required.
Documents that provide information specific to the properties within the portfolio. The following documents are required for all metrics.
Policies: organization-wide policies related to the metric.
Methodology: procedures and/or standards used to implement and document the metric.
Letter(s) of Attestation: confirmation the baseline year data was calculated in a manner similar to the reporting year.
Plans and Actions: portfolio-wide plans and actions to achieve the defined targets.
Portfolio-wide templates: common templates (e.g., checklists, plans, spreadsheets, tools) used across the portfolio.
PERFORM Property-Level Data Form: a spreadsheet which includes performance data for each property in the portfolio and summarizes the portfolio-level values. Alternative documentation is acceptable if it contains the same information as the PERFORM Property-Level Data Form.
Property-Level Sample Documents: documents for a sample of SQRT(n) properties where ‘n’ is the number of properties in the portfolio. A list of properties selected for sampling is provided during the portfolio creation process.
CALCULATION GUIDANCE: The key calculations that may be necessary to determine the performance outcomes.
REFERENCES: The resources and/or standards related to the metric.
TERMINOLOGY: Key terms used in the metrics.
PERFORM Performance Metrics Snapshot
Performance Approach A (absolute performance) and Performance Approach B (performance change) are optional approaches for each of the metrics.
Emissions
Total GHG Emissions
Total GHGs
Total GHGs
Emissions
GHG Emissions Intensity
GHGs/unit area
GHGs/unit area
Energy
Total Energy Use
Total energy
Total energy
Energy
Energy Use Intensity
Energy/unit area
Energy/unit area
Energy
Renewable Energy Use
Ren Energy (RE) or % RE
Ren Energy (RE) or % RE
Water
Total Water Use
Total Water
Total Water
Water
Water Use Intensity
Water/ unit area
Water/ unit area
Waste
Total Waste Diversion
% waste diverted
% waste diverted
Health
Occupant Satisfaction
% or # of properties
% of properties
Health
Worker Health and Safety Plan
% or # of properties
% of properties
Health
Indoor Air Quality Monitoring
% or # of properties
% of properties
Health
Indoor Air Quality Testing
% or # of properties
% of properties
Resilience
Physical Climate Risk Screening
% or # of properties
% of properties
Resilience
Physical Climate Risk Assessment
% or # of properties
% of properties
Resilience
Climate Transition Risk Assessment
% or # of properties
% of properties
Resilience
Operational Planning for Resilience-Emergency Response Plan
% or # of properties
% of properties
Resilience
Operational Planning for Resilience-Business Continuity Plan
% or # of properties
% of properties
Biodiversity
Protected and/or Restored Biodiverse Habitat
Area or % Area
Area or % Area
Social Impact
Social and Community Impact Assessment
% or # of properties
% of properties
Social Impact
Area Designated for Community Use
Area or % Area
Area or % Area
Social Impact
Community Investment
% or # of properties
% of properties
Key Terms
Portfolio: A collection of real estate assets (properties) owned, managed and/or controlled by the legal entity (organization) participating in the program. The defined portfolio must include all underlying properties associated with the performance goals, claims or targets being verified.
Properties: The real estate assets in a portfolio, including any buildings and any land associated with the buildings.
Performance Category: A key impact area to measure, track and verify sustainability performance of a portfolio.
Performance Metric: A key indicator to measure, track and verify performance outcomes of a portfolio.
Target: A user-defined goal to achieve a desired performance outcome by a user-defined date.
Interim Target: A user-defined goal to demonstrate incremental progress toward the defined target.
Percentage of Properties: Percentage of properties in the portfolio where a performance metric has been implemented, calculated by the formula:
Percentage Change: Change in performance from a baseline year, calculated by the formula:
Percentage Point Change: Change in performance from a baseline year, calculated by the formula:
Performance Approaches: Ways in which performance may be measured and verified.
Performance Approach A: Measures absolute performance of a metric.
Performance Approach B: Measures change in performance of a metric from a baseline year.
Baseline Year: A 12-month period used to track changes in performance over time.
Reporting Year: The most recent or current 12-month period for which performance is being tracked and submitted for verification.
Gross Floor Area: Gross floor area is the sum of the floor areas within a building excluding floor area dedicated to parking and the circulation of motor vehicles, non-enclosed areas, non-enclosable areas and roofed areas.
Portfolio Gross Floor Area: Sum of total gross floor area for all properties within a portfolio.
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