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How climate-friendly are buildings owned by large pension funds: An SRF survey shows their carbon footprint.
A quarter of Swiss CO₂ emissions come from buildings. A significant proportion of them are in the hands of pension funds: they own real estate worth around CHF 285 billion. With their real estate, the pension funds have a lot of influence on Switzerland’s path to net zero CO₂ by 2050.
These are numbers that we have never seen in this form.
SRF wanted to know from large pension funds where they stand with their properties in terms of energy technology. Donato Scognamiglio from the real estate consulting firm Iazi analyzed the survey for SRF: “It’s a very exciting survey. These are numbers that we have never seen in this form.”
The results of the survey made it clear that all the pension funds surveyed were making efforts to reduce the CO₂ emissions of their real estate: “It’s no longer just Greta or boys who stick themselves somewhere – the message has reached the real estate portfolio managers.”
SRF survey climate commitment pension funds
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SRF wanted to know what share the following heating systems currently have in the pension fund properties: oil, gas, electricity, wood, heat pumps, district heating and others.
Furthermore, the current energy consumption of the properties was asked on average per square meter of energy reference area and year (kWh/m2 EBF/a). From this, Donato Scognamiglio from the real estate consulting firm Iazi calculated the CO2 consumption per square meter of energy reference area.
Publica, BVK, Migros Pensionskasse, Axa, Asga, Caisse de Prévoyance de l’Etat de Genève, SBB Pensionskasse, PKCS and PKUBS were written to. With the exception of UBS, all pension funds responded to the questions.
Despite commitment, there is a great need for action. The survey shows that the proportion of oil and gas heating systems is still high: it is above the Swiss average of 58 percent in almost all pension funds.
Donato Scognamiglio attributes this to the fact that some of the pension funds own many buildings from the 1960s and 1970s.
Legend: SRF
Many buildings with oil or gas heating and poor insulation: This is also reflected in the CO₂ consumption per square meter of energy reference area: In some cases, it is 20 and more kilograms of CO₂ per square meter for the properties of the pension funds inquired about. “I would have expected somewhere with 15 kg per square meter and year,” says the real estate expert.
Legend: SRF
The pension funds operate in a field of conflict: They have to achieve an appropriate return on their investments in order to earn interest on the pension assets of their insured. At the same time, they should bring their properties up to date in terms of climate.
Sustainability costs
Oliver Diethelm, Managing Director of the Pensionskasse Schaffhausen, uses two examples to show what this means. PKSH decided to completely refurbish three properties in St. Gallen that were built in 1961.
Legend: Energy-efficient PKSH properties in St. Gallen The three PKSH properties were built in 1961 and renovated in 1989 for the first time. Now the oil heating has been replaced with heat pumps, there is photovoltaic on the roof and the insulation is 18 cm instead of 8 cm. SRF
The 42 tenants were given notice because the floor plans of the apartments were changed and the interior was redone. Instead of oil heating, a heat pump now supplies the energy, the buildings have been insulated, and there is now a photovoltaic system on the roof. This has its price: of the 11.4 million Swiss francs in investment costs, two million are for sustainability
Target return must be achieved
In this case, PKSH pays off. “We were just able to achieve our target return or minimum return of three percent. But we are lower than the more than four percent before. We are now at 3.2 percent,” says managing director Oliver Diethelm.
In the case of another property, on the other hand, PKSH postponed the renewal, even though the property, which was built in 1981, was in need of renovation. “We then came up with such high costs that we would have fallen below our minimum return of three percent,” says Oliver Diethelm.
Yield versus climate: The more than 1000 pension funds have a major impact on the Swiss climate balance sheet.