Doing Nothing

Some real estate companies are still choosing to take no formal action on climate risk - either due to lack of resources, awareness, or belief that it won’t materially affect them. While this might seem like the path of least resistance, it may lead to dire consequences:

• Increased insurance costs or even loss of insurability for high-risk assets
• Growing risk of stranded assets—properties that lose value or become unusable due to climate impacts or new regulations
• No internal documentation or defensible position if risks materialize or stakeholders suddenly do start asking questions
• Missed opportunity to future-proof your portfolio and access financing or incentive structures tied to sustainability performance

In short: doing nothing might feel low-risk today, but it exposes your portfolio to long-term financial risk.

Hiring Consultants: The Traditional Approach

Many firms have historically relied on sustainability consultants to assess climate-related risks. This typically involves:

• Site visits and manual data collection
• Tailored analysis using industry frameworks
• Custom reports and mitigation recommendations

Consultants can offer deep, property-specific insights and help with highly complex or high-risk assets and are crucial for calculating dimensions in physical adaptation solutions. However, there are some limitations:

• High cost, especially across large portfolios
• Long delivery times - depending on the scope reports can take up to several months
• Static output that’s difficult to update as data and risks evolve
• Limited scalability when managing dozens or hundreds of properties

For unique or high-stakes projects, consultants can still add significant value, but they are not always necessary if the goal is to carry out an assessment of the current risk in your portfolio today - and find out where you need to use more resources to reduce the risk.

Telescope: A Smarter, Scalable Alternative

Telescope is a digital platform designed to make climate risk assessment fast, structured, and compliant—with help of internal resources. By simply entering an address, users receive a comprehensive risk analysis covering physical climate risk, biodiversity, and transition risk.

Some of the benefits of this approach include:

• Instant overview of the risks across entire portfolio.
• Structured methodologies that follow best practices for climate risk management and are aligned with requirements in the EU Taxonomy and CSRD.
• Supports the Norwegian Green Building Alliance’s new taxonomy verification service.
• Cost-effective and easy to integrate into internal ESG workflows.
• A simple way to build internal expertise and develop competence on a hairy topic.

Real estate professionals already know their buildings, locations, and operations better than anyone. With a tool like Telescope, that internal knowledge is combined with high-quality data and AI-driven insights - delivering accurate, actionable results that don’t require outside consultants to interpret.

What’s “Good Enough” for Climate Risk Management?

A common misconception is that only external consultants can deliver valid and compliant climate risk assessments. But in most cases, internal teams - supported by robust digital tools - are more than capable of managing this themselves. In one customer project Telescope helped a customer achieve a green loan through a third party verification by DNV.

What matters most is how the assessment is conducted:

• Using standardized, reliable data
• Following structured methodologies
• Ensuring assessments are regularly updated

With Telescope, climate risk management becomes a repeatable, efficient, and fully compliant process - on your terms.

When to Bring in a Consultant

There are still cases where external consultants can be valuable - for instance:

• Complex sites where the risk exposrure is high, and there is a need to carry out engineering design of specific adaptation solutions.

In these situations, Telescope can serve as the initial screening layer - identifying which properties might warrant further expert analysis. That way, consultant time and budget is spent where it matters most.

Take Control of Your Climate Risk Strategy

Outsourcing everything to consultants is no longer scalable or necessary. And doing nothing is no longer acceptable.

The most effective way forward is with structured, automated tools like Telescope. With a methodology verified by DNV and recognized by Green Building Alliance, you can be confident your assessments are aligned with both market expectations and regulatory requirements.

Start assessing your portfolio with Telescope today - and take control of your climate risk strategy.

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