– This made a significant difference in our valuation of the property at Tevlingveien 15, says Jon H. Dahlberg Årstad, CEO at Newsec.

Karlander Eiendom and the tenants of Tevlingveien 15 initiated a series of sustainability measures to improve the efficiency of the 6000 square meter office-building at Alna in Oslo.

– We installed solar panels on the roof, improved waste separation with Carrot, changed ventilation system and established a centralized operations system, says Joakim Fuglerud, CEO at Karlander Eiendom.

Documenting their sustainability measures using software from Carrot's partner VARIG®, Karlander Eiendom applied for green financing.

– We showed how the tenants could effectively be engaged and how accurately we could monitor and measure the effects through VARIG®. The bank saw how our green measures contributed to more value being created. This ensured a green loan to finance the measures, Fuglerud explains.

The measures was aimed at making the building operations more effective.

– This way we could reduce the shared costs, making the building even more attractive for tenants. Which in turn would increase the building’s value, he says.

Higher interest rates, the risk of reduced financial operability from tenants, and general unease in the global financial markets, are already affecting valuations of commercial real estate in Norway, according to Dahlberg Årstad at Newsec.

Dahlberg Årstad explains that they generally see increased demands from investors, banks, and partially tenants, for ESG-documentation within commercial real estate.

– The most important driver is the EU-taxonomy, issuing the standards for what can be classified as a green investment, or not. The energy consumption and classification of buildings are having a steadily increasing impact on the property values. Sustainability and energy are therefore becoming more key in our valuations, he says.

– The measures and documentation made it possible for us to lower our estimated depreciation, Dahlberg Årstad says.

The valutaion ensured Karlander Eiendom did not challenge the LTV (loan-to-value) or any of the other terms of the building’s financial agreements.

– In addition, the sustainability measures contributed to expand the down payment horizon on our loan, providing us with flexibility. Our tenants will also be net positive from our collective effort. We are now far better equipped to meet the increasing sustainability demands with which our industry are faced, Fuglerud says.

Linking sustainability with profitability

Sustainability is becoming a the real estate sector needs to become either profitable or a compliance matter before it really takes off.

– What we are experiencing right now, is that the requirements from the EU takes sustainability from a nice-to-have to a need-to-have. Eventually, no one will have any excuse for not becoming more sustainable. At that point, the rest will take care of itself, says Tore Totland.

Karlander Eiendom received a higher valuation and improved financing terms due to implementing Carrot and other sustainability measures.

Higher valuation and green financing due to sustainability measures

How well our waste is sorted affects the proportion of materials we can extract for recycling purposes. Waste sorting in itself relies heavily on the effort and the choices that each and every one of us makes in our daily routines.

At a shopping mall in Bergen, some tenants managed to reduce the amount of residual waste their shops produced by up to 80%, thanks to information and incentives for better sorting enabled by Carrot.

In this project, each shop nominated a sustainability officer responsible for onboarding - ensuring that both full-time and part-time employees used the Carrot app when handling waste from the shop.

The amount and different types of waste were tracked using quantity registration, providing both the tenants and the operation manager at the mall with a full overview of all waste and material flows. Digitizing the waste streams enabled the operations manager to follow up tenants with potential for improvement, in addition to making a fair cost distribution based on recycling efforts possible.

Carrot connects to existing infrastructure

Existing containers for different types of waste in the basement of the mall were equipped with smart locks and weight systems, and information materials across the mall were upgraded to enable the tenants to improve their waste sorting efforts.

With over a thousand full-time and part-time employees, the shopping mall shows that they can make a big difference by sorting more and handling waste smarter:

The shopping mall increased the sorting rate from 54% to 72%

The amount of residual waste was reduced by approximately 120,000 kilos per year

They increased the number of waste types from 18 to 23

The results show that information and incentives for better sorting make it easier and more motivating for shops and their employees to change to more sustainable behavior, and improve waste sorting.

At Carrot, we want to make it easier for everyone to improve their habits, enabling choices that generate less waste, bringing us closer to solving the world’s waste problem.

At Vestkanten in Bergen, a shopping mall consisting of 110 restaurants and shops, some tenants were able to reduce the amount of residual waste by 80% after implementing Carrot.

At Vestkanten in Bergen, a shopping mall consisting of 110 restaurants and shops, some tenants reduced the amount of residual waste by 80% after implementing Carrot.

Collecting data about waste enabled some tenants at Vestkanten Storsenter to reduce residual waste by 80%

BIR is Norway’s second-largest municipally-owned waste management company. The company is organized as a group and owns its entire value chain, providing unique opportunities for digitization and innovation. 

BIR has also been central to the development of Carrot’s software that makes it possible to reward people for sorting their waste; the less residual waste the household disposes of, the lower the fee.

This is made possible by Carrot's software that tracks the amount of waste each household throw away by connecting to access-controlled containers and digital collection registration on the garbage trucks. 

Bente Gansum Daazenko, general manager of BIR Privat AS, explains that by collecting information where waste is collected, they are able to implement the “polluter-pays principle” and thus motivate people to increase their sorting effort. If you throw less, you pay less.

- The introduction of an incentive-based fee model and Carrot’s software has made it possible for us to develop our business models further. This is how the waste industry can participate in future value creation enabled by new technologies, Daazenko continues.

Carrot’s software is designed to simplify administrative processes and connects easily to new methods for registering and monitoring different types of waste. Tracking waste to identify what is eligible for recycling, reuse or repurposing is crucial for creating a circular economy.

The results from Bergen are uplifting: people have become aware of which types of waste can be returned to the cycle simply by sorting better. Increased sorting is both beneficial for the environment and people’s wallets.

- With the introduction of a flexible fee model, we saw a 9% reduction in residual waste and a 28% increase in collected plastic. That is a good development, Daazenko believes.

People also reported experiencing the flexible fee model as a positive measure and found it easier to be environmentally friendly.

Carrot has for a long time worked purposefully to reduce technological complexity and create new systems for sustainable waste management for a long time. By combining smart IoT solutions with customer-friendly services, people at home can be involved and rewarded in new ways. This way, we reduce the amount of unsorted residual waste and capture more of the materials that have value in circular value chains.

Results show a 9% reduction in collected residual waste, and being rewarded with a lower waste fee has proven to be a motivating factor for people in the city. 

In Bergen, the second-largest city in Norway, the publicly-owned waste management company BIR has had great success with Carrot. Results show a 9% reduction in collected residual waste, and being rewarded with a lower waste fee has proven to be a motivating factor for people in the city.

Use cases

Higher valuation and green financing due to sustainability measures

Collecting data about waste enabled some tenants at Vestkanten Storsenter to reduce residual waste by 80%

Rewarding households in Bergen for sorting efforts resulted in a 9% reduction in collected residual waste