What is CRREM?
Is your building at risk?

For an office building in France, the CRREM pathway falls from 167 kWh/m² of energy consumed per year in 2025 to 116 kWh/m² in 2030, then levels off at 75 from 2036. An office that uses 150 kWh/m² today rises above its energy pathway as early as 2027 if no works are carried out. That date, its misalignment year, is the indicator investors look at.

The same curves exist for housing, retail, hotels, healthcare buildings and warehouses. The values are those of the CRREM Foundation's online explorer, version V2.04 of August 2025. The tool also calculates the carbon pathway, depending on how the building is heated.

1What is CRREM, and where does it come from?

CRREM, short for Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor, is a set of decarbonisation pathways for real estate. Its methodology starts from the global carbon budget consistent with 1.5°C of warming, taken from the scenarios of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). It allocates a share of that budget to the building stock, then splits it by country, by building type and, in some large countries, by climate zone. The result is a curve per m², year by year to 2050.

One curve for energy, one for carbon

Each building type has 2 curves. The first caps energy consumption, in kWh per m² per year, across all energy sources: electricity, gas, heating oil and district heating. The second caps emissions, in kilograms of CO2 per m² per year. A variant counts all greenhouse gases, including refrigerant leaks from air conditioning units.

France has 11 building types, from offices to cold storage warehouses, by way of housing, hotels and healthcare buildings. Schools and universities have no curve of their own in this version: a campus is mapped to the closest type, an assumption that should be stated in writing.

A European project turned foundation

CRREM began in 2018 as a European research project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme. In 2021, 5 large investors, including the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, funded its extension to 44 countries. Since December 2024, an independent foundation based in the Netherlands has kept the pathways up to date. They are free to use, provided the source is credited, and the calculation method is set out in a free guide.

2Who asks for CRREM, and is it mandatory?

No legal text requires it. Neither the EU regulation on sustainability disclosures by funds, nor the EU Taxonomy, nor the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive mentions it. CRREM became established through the market, as the reference for real estate investors.

Investors and their frameworks

Institutional investors and real estate fund managers use it to measure the transition risk of their buildings: the risk that a building loses its appeal as climate rules and expectations tighten. CRREM has been built into 2 frameworks that these investors follow:

• GRESB, which scores the environmental performance of real estate funds every year, has compared its participants' buildings with the CRREM pathways since 2023, in a dedicated transition risk report.
• The SBTi, the initiative that validates corporate climate targets, built the operational emissions pathways of its buildings criteria with CRREM; the criteria were published in August 2024 and updated in July 2026.

A company that sets an SBTi-validated climate target for its buildings therefore ends up on a CRREM pathway, even without knowing it.

Does an owner of a few buildings need to care?

Rarely as an obligation, more often as a knock-on effect. The question comes up when a building changes hands or is refinanced: a buyer or lender that follows CRREM places the building on its curve in its analysis and puts its questions to the seller. In France, since 1 July 2026, the result under the Tertiary Decree (Décret Tertiaire), the French rule on energy use in commercial buildings, has also been attached to the preliminary sale agreement and to the lease of a commercial building, as our Tertiary Decree guide explains.

An organisation that occupies its own premises, such as a hospital or a university, will generally have no one asking for it. CRREM then serves as a yardstick for its works programme: it says where the building should be in 2030, 2040 and 2050, whereas the Tertiary Decree has so far published its caps for 2030 only.

3Stranding risk: what happens when a building leaves its pathway?

The year in which a building's energy use or emissions rise above its curve is the Misalignment Year, in the CRREM Foundation's terms. The foundation calculates it separately for energy and for carbon. By default, it assumes the building undergoes no works: its consumption stays constant, and only grid electricity decarbonises over the years.

A risk of capex and of value

Until July 2025, this date was called the Stranding Year: the year in which a building risks becoming a stranded asset, meaning an asset that loses value before the end of its life because it no longer meets what the market expects. The foundation renamed it to make clear that it measures a gap to the pathway, not a certain loss of value. A buyer or lender that follows CRREM reads it as works to plan for, and the time left to carry them out.

For a French office with no works, our calculation on its energy pathway gives 3 reference points:

• At 150 kWh/m² per year, it rises above its energy pathway in 2027, 1 year from now.
• At 100 kWh/m², it falls off in 2033, when its curve drops to 93.
• At 75 kWh/m² or less, it stays below its energy pathway until 2050. If it is heated by gas, it leaves its carbon pathway much earlier.

In France, energy is what pushes a building off track

French electricity emits little CO2. For offices, France's 2030 carbon pathway is therefore one of the lowest in Europe, 9 kg of CO2 per m², against 21 in Germany. Its energy pathway, on the other hand, is in the same range as those of Germany, Belgium or the United Kingdom: 116 kWh/m², against 109 in Germany.

Carbon becomes a problem mainly with gas or oil heating. An office that consumes exactly its 2030 energy pathway, 116 kWh/m², emits around 6 kgCO2e/m² (kilograms of CO2 equivalent) if it is all-electric. That is below its 2030 curve of 10.4, the one that counts all greenhouse gases. If half of its kWh come from gas, it rises to 15.5 kgCO2e/m², 50% above. The calculation uses the factors of the Base Empreinte of ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition), which CRREM does not adopt as they stand.

4How do you check where your building stands?

You need a full year of energy data, divided by floor area. The foundation's assessment guide sets the scope: the whole building, let areas included, excluding indoor car parks, unheated outdoor areas and electric vehicle charging. An owner who reads only its own meters must therefore obtain those of its tenants.

Data for the whole building

The data to gather falls into 4 groups:

• Bills for each energy source (electricity, gas, heating oil, district heating or cooling), in kWh over 12 months, for the owner's meters and for those of the tenants.
• The gross internal area, measured inside the external walls, which is the denominator of every intensity.
• Solar electricity generated and used on site; electricity sold back to the grid does not count.
• For carbon, the refrigerant type and the kilograms topped up during the year, taken from the service records of air conditioning units and heat pumps.

The Tertiary Decree makes collection easier, since landlord and tenants must already share their energy consumption with each other every year. What remains is to add up the declarations for the whole building on OPERAT, ADEME's reporting platform, and to fill the gaps: the foundation accepts extrapolation when part of the floor area is missing. The same consumption data feeds the energy items of France's mandatory greenhouse gas emissions report.

Doing it yourself or getting support

For energy, an owner may do the calculation itself: the pathways are public, and the tool at the top of this article gives the misalignment year. Carbon requires emission factors by energy source and by year, and the treatment of refrigerant leaks. CRREM's factors are not those of a Bilan Carbone® (the French carbon accounting method), so the same building may show 2 carbon intensities, as our comparison of methods and their boundaries points out.

An analysis that a fund will present to its investors may go through a licensed platform or an accredited provider. The foundation keeps a public directory of accredited providers, 11 as at 2 November 2026, tested on graded case studies and reassessed every 2 years.

5CRREM or the Tertiary Decree: what is the difference?

The Tertiary Decree is a legal obligation in France. Every site with 1,000 m² or more of commercial activity must cut its final energy consumption by 40% by 2030, 50% by 2040 and 60% by 2050. It may alternatively meet a cap in kWh/m² set for its activity. CRREM is voluntary, also applies to housing, and measures carbon as well as energy.

A very similar 2030 target for offices

For cellular offices, the decree's 2030 cap ranges from 90 to 116 kWh/m² depending on the climate zone, with 10 more for open-plan offices, according to the official absolute values (in French). The CRREM curve stands at 116. A building that reaches its absolute value under the decree is therefore roughly on its CRREM pathway in 2030. The 2 do not divide consumption by quite the same floor area: the comparison remains a benchmark.

After 2030, CRREM moves much faster

The CRREM curve for offices falls to 75 kWh/m² from 2036 and stays there until 2050, 35% less than in 2030. The decree moves from -40% to -50% against the reference year between 2030 and 2040: around 17% less than the 2030 target, over 4 more years. Its 2040 and 2050 caps have not yet been published. A cellular office building that stopped at the decree's 2030 cap would leave its CRREM curve between 2030 and 2034, depending on its zone.

6How do you bring a building back onto its pathway?

The Tertiary Decree treats a cost as disproportionate beyond a 10-year payback for controls, 15 years for equipment and 30 years for the building envelope. Settings and controls come first, because they cost little and pay back quickly. For the rest, the order matters: insulating before replacing the boiler avoids oversizing the heat pump.

Controls first, then heating and the envelope

The levers run from the cheapest to the heaviest:

• Building controls and settings: heating and cooling schedules, setpoints, ventilation switched off at night and at weekends. In France, the BACS Decree (building automation and control systems) requires a control system above 70 kW of heating or cooling, by 2030 at the latest.
• Tenant behaviour: above 2,000 m² of offices or retail, the environmental annex to the lease, the French green lease, carries a joint action programme.
• Moving off gas and heating oil, with a heat pump or a connection to a district heating network. In France, this is the measure that weighs most on the carbon pathway, and it reduces exposure to the future carbon price on heating.
• Refrigerants: leaking air conditioning weighs on the all-gas curve, and cooling solutions without fluorinated gases exist.
• Rooftop solar, counted only for electricity used on site, then the envelope, the most expensive and the slowest to pay back.

The works, and their own carbon

CRREM counts only the energy of the building in operation. The carbon emitted to manufacture and install insulation, a heat pump or a new facade is not included, whereas the SBTi also asks for it to be reduced. A works programme that keeps the building on its curve can therefore shift emissions to the construction phase. A life cycle assessment of the renovation settles the choice between scenarios, up to the question of renovating or rebuilding.

These choices can be partly funded: our overview of climate transition funding lists the schemes that cover the diagnosis and the strategy, and France's mandatory energy audit can serve as the basis for the works programme.

At Projet Celsius, we see CRREM as a sound benchmark for a French owner, even with no investor asking for it: it extends the Tertiary Decree to 2050, carbon included. The first useful step is to gather a year of energy data for the whole building, tenants included, and to look at how it is heated. Those 2 pieces of data already tell you whether it is at risk. We are not accredited by the foundation and do not sell a platform. We make this consumption data consistent with OPERAT and the Bilan Carbone®, place it on the pathway, against the Tertiary Decree target and within the transition plan, then cost the carbon of the works before they are decided.

7Key takeaways

• CRREM sets each building type, country by country, an energy and carbon pathway aligned with 1.5°C, year by year to 2050.
• No law requires it: investors, GRESB and the SBTi use it, and the question comes up when a building is sold or financed.
• The misalignment year says when a building with no works exceeds its curve: at 150 kWh/m², a French office leaves its energy pathway in 2027, and its carbon pathway earlier if it is heated by gas.
• In France, energy use and gas heating push a building off track long before the carbon of its electricity.
• For offices, CRREM meets the Tertiary Decree cap in 2030, then falls to 75 kWh/m² from 2036.

The legal obligations that already apply to a commercial building in France, and how they are split between landlord and tenant, are set out in our guide to the Tertiary Decree and the BACS Decree.

Further resources

Frequently asked questions

1What is CRREM?

CRREM (Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor) is a set of decarbonisation pathways for real estate, aligned with 1.5°C of warming. For each country and each building type, it sets an annual curve for energy consumption (kWh/m²) and emissions (kgCO2/m²) up to 2050. Born of a European project in 2018, it has been maintained since December 2024 by an independent foundation based in the Netherlands.

2Is CRREM mandatory?

No. No European or French legal text requires it. It became established through the market: investors and real estate fund managers use it to measure the transition risk of their buildings, GRESB has used it since 2023 and the SBTi built its buildings criteria with it. In France, the legal obligation for commercial buildings remains the Tertiary Decree.

3What is the CRREM stranding year?

It is the former name of the Misalignment Year: the first year in which a building's energy use or emissions exceed its CRREM pathway, assuming no works. The foundation renamed it in July 2025 to make clear that it measures a gap to the pathway, not a certain loss of value. The calculation method has not changed.

4Is CRREM data free to use?

Yes. The pathways, the emission factors and the assessment guide are freely available for analysis, reporting or an internal decision, with the source credited. A consultant may use them for clients. Reselling the data or building it into paid software requires a licence. The former free Excel tool was withdrawn on 1 July 2026.

5Which version of the CRREM pathways should you use in 2026?

The foundation's library publishes version 2.05, dated 30 April 2026, downloadable after filling in a form. The online explorer still shows version V2.04 of August 2025, the one behind the values in this article. New energy pathways are expected in the fourth quarter of 2027, after a consultation open until 4 December 2026; the current ones remain valid until then.

6Does CRREM count the embodied carbon of renovation works?

No. CRREM counts only the energy consumed by the building in operation and the resulting emissions, including refrigerant leaks in its all-gas variant. The carbon of materials and construction work is not included. The SBTi buildings criteria require it in addition, and a life cycle assessment of the renovation makes it possible to quantify it.

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