Roussac says the beauty of assessing the carbon risk of a property is that a “bad rating can also be good depending on the competency of the manager, because a poor building has huge potential for greater efficiency and management of demand. If you have a building that’s more efficient and the price of energy doubles, the building becomes twice as attractive to tenants and future purchasers,” he says. For VicSuper, sustainability is the central operating principle for its investment decisions and fund operations, says Danielle Welsh, manager of sustainability investment at the $6 billion fund. She believes Australian companies transitioning to less carbon-intensive practices will benefit when a price on carbon is eventually set. “Carbon is currently an externality we put into the atmosphere for free. If we’re not paying the true price for resources now there will have to be a price paid to stop the catastrophe of climate change later,” she says.