PGGM and Legal & General in €500m ESG-heavy real estate tie

Legal & General Capital and Dutch pension fund manager PGGM have launched a London office joint venture partnership with a focus on impact investment. The tie-up will look to integrate material environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects throughout its assets, “in turn realising a strong ESG performance”. It has also completed its first £67m investment – 72 Broadwick Street in London’s Soho area. The joint venture initially has an allocation of circa £375m (€500m) to invest. Mathieu Elshout, Senior Investment Manager at PGGM commented: “As a responsible investor we believe that we have an obligation to contribute to a sustainable world. We can do so via impact investment, or investing in solutions, as we call it. We strongly believe that ESG factors have a material impact on the financial performance of our real estate portfolios and that this will continue to grow over time.”