Biodiversity in Real Estate: What "Good" Looks Like for Office Buildings

For the office asset class, "good" performance means an asset that minimizes its impact on sensitive local ecosystems while maximizing the natural quality of its immediate surroundings.

Defining "Good" Through Key Biodiversity Metrics

To understand what "good" looks like for an office building, we look at four core metrics. A high-performing asset typically falls within the top 25% of the office asset class across these indicators.

1. Natural Cover (Top 25% Benchmark: >35%)

Natural cover represents the share of land within a 500m radius that is green rather than paved or artificial. For office buildings, which are often located in dense urban cores, a natural cover score above 35% is considered high performance.

2. MSA Land Use (Top 25% Benchmark: >0.39)

Mean Species Abundance (MSA) serves as a proxy for ecosystem condition or "intactness." It measures how close the surrounding environment is to a natural state. For office properties, a score above 0.39 indicates that the surrounding ecosystem is relatively healthy compared to the global office average.

3. Biodiversity Sensitivity Exposure (Top 25% Benchmark: Raw Value <0.12)

The Protected Area Sensitivity Index (PASI) measures how your building interacts with nearby protected lands. Unlike a simple distance check, this index weights the size of the protected area against its distance from your site.

What this means for you: A lower score is better. An office building with a PASI below 0.12 is effectively "buffered" from sensitive ecosystems. This suggests lower operational risk and fewer complexities regarding future environmental regulations or zoning changes.

4. Threatened Species Total (Top 25% Benchmark: <2.0 Species)

This metric identifies at-risk species observed within 1 km of the property, using verified GBIF occurrence records from the past 10 years. Unlike habitat models, it reflects real-world sightings of Critically Endangered, Endangered, or Vulnerable species.

A count below 2.0 indicates a lower direct interface with at-risk species, helping asset managers support TNFD “Evaluate” requirements with auditable, evidence-based data.

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Office Asset Class Benchmarks

The following table outlines the median and top-performing (Top 25%) benchmarks for office buildings globally, derived from Aura’s office benchmark dataset.

See how your asset stacks up. Try the Aura Free tool below.

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How to Report This in a DDQ

When responding to investor Due Diligence Questionnaires (DDQs) or sustainability reporting requests, use these benchmarks to contextualize your asset’s performance:

• Contextualize with Percentiles: Rather than just providing a raw MSA value, report that the asset "ranks in the top 25th percentile for ecosystem condition within the global office asset class."
• Identify Low-Risk Assets: Use the PASI score to demonstrate that your assets are located in areas of low biodiversity sensitivity (falling below the 0.12 threshold), addressing specific nature-related financial risk queries.
• Support Framework Alignment: These metrics directly support the "Locate" and "Evaluate" phases of the TNFD LEAP process, providing the quantitative evidence investors now expect.

See how your portfolio stacks up using the tool on this page.

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