Sustainability enters the valuation conversation

Sustainability characteristics — energy performance, transition plans, climate exposure — are increasingly part of the conversation between valuers, clients and the users of valuation reports. What they are not, yet, is a settled body of valuation practice. This is an area where evidence is still being gathered and methods are still maturing, and the honest professional position is measured rather than declarative.

A profession gathering evidence

The IVSC’s current work in this area starts with listening. Its ESG/Sustainability Survey 2025-26 continues the organisation’s practice of surveying the profession on sustainability matters. Gathering structured input before settling guidance is slower than proclaiming answers, but it is how a standards body avoids codifying practice that the market has not yet tested. For practitioners, contributing to that evidence base is one of the more useful things to do while the picture forms.

Transparency as the common thread

Where sustainability policy touches valuation, the consistent theme is transparency rather than any particular metric. The UNECE’s Policy Framework for Sustainable Real Estate Markets (2019) supports, in Principle 10, property valuation based on transparent asset appraisal criteria in line with international standards — citing IVS as an example. The framework’s ambition is sustainable real estate markets in the round; its valuation principle asks simply that appraisal criteria be transparent and internationally grounded. That is a modest claim, and a durable one.

What existing standards already require

Engaging with sustainability information does not depend on new rules. Under the existing IVS framework, sustainability-related information enters a valuation the way any information does: as data, inputs and assumptions. The General Standards already require discipline about where data comes from, how models are applied, and what the report discloses — requirements that apply with full force to sustainability inputs. A valuer asked to reflect an energy rating or a transition assumption in a value does not need a new rulebook to know that its source, reliability and effect must be explained.

And where the evidence base is thin, the IVSC’s Perspectives Paper Managing and Communicating Value Uncertainty is directly relevant: value uncertainty is inherent rather than a failure, and transparency about it strengthens confidence in the valuation rather than weakening it. That framing suits sustainability questions well, where credible ranges and clearly stated assumptions are often more honest than false precision.

The research front

The open questions here are as much academic as practical, and they now have a forum. The IVSC Academic Forum, established in 2025, meets quarterly to connect valuation academics with the development of the standards, and explicitly promotes research on ESG alongside technology and data. As evidence accumulates — on how markets price sustainability characteristics, and on how such data can be handled within the existing framework — that channel is how findings reach the standards process.