Dear all,
I am a Japanese consultant and I am helping a client set up a SBT for SMEs. One client is a REIT whose portfolio fully consists of hotels.
As you may know, in the hotel industry, the hotel owner (building owner) and the hotel operator (building user) can be two separate entities. And my client, a hotel REIT, leases a building to a hotel operator, who in turn uses the building as a hotel.
In this case, the hotel operator has Scope 1/2 because it operates the hotel and emits greenhouse gases (due to energy use from heating, cooling, ventilation, and electricity etc.) in its operations, but the hotel REIT does not have Scope 1/2 because it only leases the building to the operator.
In this case, can a hotel REIT that only leases buildings to hotel operators and does not have Scope 1/2 in its business (rental business) apply for SBT for SMEs? I ask this question because my client would like to apply for the Net-Zero Target, which requires a near-term target based on Scope 1/2.
note: REIT in Japan(J-REIT) is a unique organization because it doen’t have employee. J-REIT is only the vehicle which is managed by asset management(AM) company, so the hotel REIT described above doesn’t have any scope1/2 since it doesn’t have neither employee, office nor self-controlled asset.