The Chamber of Professional Valuers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors - RICS– one of the global leaders in real estate development and evaluation held their 4th conference in Bulgarian on the 27th of April at the Hayatt Regency Sofia.

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The conference brought together worldwide acknowledged RICS representatives in the real estate valuators sector from all around Europe and many other professionals in the real estate sector – developers, facility managers, financial specialists and many more to discuss the newest trends and mainly the forthcoming implementation of the ESG directives in the local legislation and how this is expected to influence the real estate market in Bulgaria.

Among the participants invited to share their opinion on the subject was our Chairperson – Ms. Adina Welsh, also well known as the Executive Director of RPHI for Bulgaria who participated in the 1st panel:” The real estate market – perspectives and ESG realities”. This panel gave a detailed overview on the local real estate market from the perspectives of: Mr. Ivan Velkov, BGBC, Facility Management Association, Mr. Ivaylo Alexiev, Sustainable Energy Development Agency, Mr.Yordan Nikolov, Bulgarian Association of Insulation in Construction, Prof. Manyu Morevenov, Bulgarian Stock Exchange, Mr. Nikola Stoyanov, Bulgarian Post Bank.

 

“Interestingly, the RICS view on the impact of ESG strategies and implemented measures on asset valuations is that it shall be decided by the market. Our goal with the BGBC is to educate on the positive impact of Green certification and Net Zero agenda so that we can actually see a positive impact on asset valuations.”

Adina Welsh, BGBC Chairpenson, Director of RPHI Bulgaria

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The second panel was focused on: “The implementation of the ESG directives in Bulgaria”. The invited participants, who shared their opinions, again represented different businesses: Ms. Daniela Ilic, MRICS, TEGoVA, Ms. Tanya Kosseva – Boshova, MRICS, Lion’s Head and Park Lane Developments,  Ms. Velentina Stancheva, BILLA real estate, Ms. Aglika Georgieva, Deloitte Bulgaria, Mr. Tsenko Tzenkov, Unicredit Bulbank, Mr. Nikola Kedov, MRICS and Mr. Georgi Pavlov, Proptech.bg. The participants came to very interesting conclusions over the expected difficulties of the ESG directives implementation in Bulgaria. There was also a focus on the requirements and improvements of the business real estate investors on the matter: 

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“Our company is already working on the ESG reports. Besides the green policies and rules, followed in all of our buildings, we have started to offer green rental agreements to our clients. Most of the employees of the companies which inhabit our buildings have high green standards and requirements. At the moment we are working on operating buildings certificates in LEED, BREEAM and WELL for our buildings: Polygraphia Office Center and Megapark Office Center - this is in addition to the certificates that we already have for design and build of these buildings.“

Tanya Kosseva – Boshova, MRICS, Lion’s Head and Park Lane Developments.