Tech giant IBM and real estate and investment management-focused professional services provider JLL announced the launch of an ESG data management and reporting solution targeted at the commercial real estate (CRE) sector.

According to IBM and JLL, the new solution comes as corporate lease demand is shifting based on ESG requirements, with anticipated demand for low carbon office space expected to significantly exceed supply, while most companies are still at the early stages of integrating ESG metrics into core functions, including real estate and facilities management.

Kendra DeKeyrel, Vice President of ESG and Asset Management at IBM, said:

“Now more than ever, organizations need ESG data to underpin their sustainability performance initiatives and reporting. We look forward to working with JLL to enable their customer base with our AI-infused, specialized software to meet their evolving business needs.”

Under the new collaboration, JLL’s Sustainability Program Management, which provides sustainability services, such as decarbonization strategies to the CRE sector, will now be underpinned by IBM’s ESG data collection, analysis and reporting platform, IBM Envizi, with thousands of JLL’s clients’ sites offered the opportunity to onboard the IBM Envizi software upon the initial roll out.

According to the companies, the new solution aims to help organizations in the CRE sector to address key challenges, including capturing and managing ESG data across real estate portfolios for decision-making and public reporting.

Guy Grainger, Global Head of Sustainability Services at JLL, said:

“As ESG reporting requirements are increasingly mandated, our clients rely on us to help deliver decarbonization strategies across their portfolios. We identified IBM Envizi as our preferred solution that will allow our expansive team of sustainability subject matter experts to provide more robust reporting and data management around these strategies.”