Outperform, don’t Overspend: Optimizing Portfolios Without Major Capex
PropTech Connect
Connecting Global Real Estate Executives, Entrepreneurs, & Investors.
On Wednesday 28th March, Martijn van der Graaf , COO, Western Europe at Essendi , Dr. Evan Petkov , Co-Founder & CEO at Optiml , Filippa Strandänger , CSO at Alma Property Partners and Shreya Sheth , Head of Ambio, Building Technology & Sustainability at PATRIZIA SE , joined us to explore how leading firms are optimizing portfolios without relying on major capex.
It was a pleasure hosting our fantastic speakers and the highly engaged audience in this session! In case you missed it, here are some key quotes from this week's webinar.
The session recording can be accessed through the link here:
Webinar Highlights:
1. Why Low-Capex Strategies Are Climbing the Real Estate Agenda
What’s behind the growing demand for leaner, smarter portfolio improvements- and how are leaders reframing what progress looks like in 2025?
Filippa Strandänger: “Investor demand and capital for sustainable solutions is increasing, particularly in real estate investments and decarbonization. At Alma, where we take a value-driven investment approach, integrating decarbonization, embedding ESG issues, being a responsible investor and working with sustainable property development is a natural part of how we create value. At the intersection of sustainability, decarbonization, and financial performance lies one key concept: efficiency. The key to unlocking efficiency is data. Investors increasingly want data to understand efficiency and lower capex and reach their decarbonization goals.
Why now? Capital is following a purpose. Investor awareness is rising, tenant expectations are evolving, and regulations are constantly changing, impacting the investor community e.g. the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation within the EU and the SE regulation in the US. ESG is also becoming a core part of risk management, with climate and biodiversity risk now routine parts of portfolio assessments. It's about future-proofing the assets and impacting its value.
Proptech is not just about innovation, it's about creating efficiency. A successful solution enables tenants and landlords to do more with less, improving both financial and sustainability outcomes. At Alma, we’re about to launch our sustainability report about how we track, optimize, and decarbonize assets, while providing case studies and enabling meaningful dialogue with investors and stakeholders.”
Shreya Sheth: “Decarbonization is seen as of prime importance, and even with the change in regulations, it's about what is your strategy. Regulations keep adapting depending on the government and region, but it's about what the investor wants. Do we want to avoid obsolescence on your asset? Do we want to avoid the brown discount so that we ensure that you get the premium you’re asking for?
When implementing brown-to-green strategies, starting with one asset as a case study can be highly effective. But when operating at scale, for example, at Patrizia, where 1,200 assets are under management, it's essential to leverage economies of scale to drive efficiency. If a commercial asset has already delivered strong outcomes, the focus shifts to whether that success can be replicated across similar assets within the region.
Low-capex strategies are increasingly driven by investor priorities. In today’s real estate market, assets no longer simply pay for themselves. Instead, the focus is on adding exact value, securing rental premiums, achieving stronger headline rents, and ultimately delivering greater returns to investors.”
Dr. Evan Petkov: “The rate of change of policy and investor expectations is outpacing the speed at which physical upgrades can even go. In certain cities, there are regulations like the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate), which require a minimum energy efficiency rating before a building can be rented out.
So the question is: how can owners drive returns now? I think the cost of capital has flipped that equation. Suddenly it's not just about ambition anymore, it’s about how fast you get there if it's part of your strategy.
Three main things leaders are looking at are: incentives if you can get them, creative financing, and then lastly the optimization of capex and returns, which is what we focus on. This prioritization can drive meaningful impact and serve as a competitive advantage by stacking different value propositions in the building, ranging from both low to potentially high capex that can be financed and amortized over time.
Economies of scale and those rollouts are a key part of the modern low-capex strategy.”
Martijn van der Graaf: “In our company's decarbonization efforts, we began with low-capex initiatives which have been around for a while. Starting with smaller investments makes strategic sense, especially when the return on larger expenditures is still unclear and there are already opportunities to achieve significant P&L savings through simpler projects. At a certain point, all the low-hanging fruit is gone. Then you need to move to the next phase, high-capex investment.
We’ve seen the results. We have a large portfolio of more than 500 hotels, and we have energy consumption data. We run tests and take actions in certain hotels, then we see the consumption going down. We replicate that across the portfolio. If you have scale, you can leverage your results across other properties.
Low-capex is the logical place to start, but it's also about training and systems. When you build a new hotel, the systems are set perfectly, but then operations change settings and suddenly it's no longer optimal. By working on training and systems optimization, you can decarbonize significantly and reduce energy without immediately needing to install solar panels or replace all heating systems at once.”
2. How Can Teams Unlock Bigger Wins with Smaller Budgets?
What untapped opportunities are asset teams missing- and how can they turn strong intent into smarter, leaner execution?
Dr. Evan Petkov: “We go into a real estate company both as a friend and with a duty to improve processes. We usually start by mapping out how decisions are made today on their buildings and identify where the issues are. From there, we help them move toward a more efficient target operating model, especially related to questions like: when should you do a low-capex measure, and how should you make financial and sustainable trade-offs?
One common challenge is that financial decisions from asset management are often very far removed from the ESG side. The two have been merging more in recent years, which is a good sign. Still, in many companies, they're quite separate, which makes action planning difficult.
We bridge that gap to allow better prioritization according to the different KPIs such as the CRREM stranding target goal or a certain capex cap with a holding period. The question becomes: how do you meet those goals? It’s not about inventing radical new approaches, it’s about improving collaboration. That’s something we’ve seen holding people back. But it is improving, especially in Europe.”
Filippa Strandänger: “At Alma, asset management and ESG are closely integrated — the two areas are so connected that it’s a no-brainer to integrate them. Both functions are represented in our Sustainability Committee, where our proptech agenda started and decarbonization efforts began.
One common challenge is control. For example, if you have a property and some of the responsibility lies with the landlord and some with the tenant, it creates a hurdle. You can’t take full responsibility for energy efficiency if part of it falls under the tenant’s control. To address this, Alma introduced an ESG lease appendix with guiding principles and tailored action plans for each tenant, fostering shared responsibility and collaboration on decarbonization and broader ESG goals.
Time is another factor. For instance, if we have a holding period of five years, we need to think beyond that. We must consider what will make the asset attractive to the next buyer. The interest in this has grown, not just because of regulation, but because people understand that decarbonization adds value. Key challenges like responsibility, control, time, cost, and data remain, but proptech plays a vital role in overcoming them—especially by enabling better data collection and actionable insights.”
Shreya Sheth: “If you look at any asset, it is about how the processes run from acquisition to sale and to active asset management, all the way to disposal. The question is if you are joining those dots. Even at the pre-IC (Investment Committee) stage, do you already have a sustainability standard that you want to apply, rather than simply aiming to transact and bring it into a particular fund?
From acquisition through to sale, we aim to ensure that each asset meets our relevant goals and has a clear blueprint in place. We're working on regional and sector-specific blueprints, including nuanced approaches where 85% of the asset is tenant-controlled and only 15% is under the landlord’s control. Even in those cases we ask: what needs to happen so we attract the right tenants, those aligned with our decarbonization goals?
We take an end-to-end approach so we can unlock bigger wins. With a smaller budget, such as one aimed only at utility savings, we’ve seen that the first 30% of energy savings can often be achieved easily, with a return on investment in under a year. The challenge is that efforts have been disjointed. It’s about scaling these results through blueprints so that we can deliver value across the portfolio.”
Martijn van der Graaf: “In our company, asset management, the maintenance team, and the ESG team are very well connected and they work closely together. For every investment decision, even those unrelated to sustainability, a sustainability scoring framework that must be completed.
Every asset we own is scored using this grid. For example, if we’re going to renovate a hotel room, we assess the SRI score before and after the renovation. This makes it much easier to work with a tighter budget as sustainability is already being incorporated into an investment which is being made anyway. It’s not free but when you integrate it into broader renovations, it makes much more sense than carrying out separate, standalone sustainability investments. Putting sustainability at the core of every investment decision helps us make better choices, even down to what kind of desk we’re going to put in a hotel room. Is it sustainable? Can we change it easily later, or is it fixed to the wall? Small decisions can have a big impact, especially when multiplied across hundreds of hotels over several years.
We’re also in a slightly better position because we are both the owner and the operator and are vertically integrated. That means all the costs and all the benefits are ours. It simplifies decision-making. When landlord and tenant roles are split, it’s much harder to determine who pays and who benefits.”
3. How Top Firms Are Decarbonizing and Creating Value- Without Major Capex
Where have you seen smart, cost-efficient strategies deliver real operational or environmental gains- and what made them work?
Martijn van der Graaf: “There’s so much value here that’s underused. There are still situations where someone in the building wants control, especially in operational real estate. For example, a hotel guest wants to adjust the temperature, which can conflict with energy efficiency. There are buildings where heating and air conditioning are running at the same time. On the operational side, it’s about training and getting staff ready to use the equipment the right way. If you train people to do things properly at work, they often carry that knowledge home, which helps on a broader ESG level.
My number one recommendation is: start with training before putting serious money on the table. That’s where your first investment should go.”
Filippa Strandänger: “Once you have that training and understanding, another key low-cost action is to set tangible targets. A lot of companies are setting advanced climate targets, but they need to be realistic and actionable, especially during the holding period. It’s important to visually communicate the journey: “Here’s where we started, here’s where we’re going, and here’s the plan after the exit.”
One strategy that’s worked for us is the ESG lease appendix, where we work with tenants to co-develop action plans. These are directly tied to our tangible targets. Another area where low-cost strategies really work is building system optimization. That’s where you can find both sustainable and financial upside.”
Dr. Evan Petkov: “We see a lot of impact from improvements like lighting, demand control, and BMS systems. Those are no-brainers, especially in commercial buildings. The harder part is finding inefficiencies that aren’t obvious. Everyone usually starts with HVAC systems, but sometimes one zone or floor consumes far more energy than the rest. We always investigate if a specific area is responsible for major loss, sometimes buildings are losing 20% of their heat just due to one poorly insulated part. That’s where deeper diagnostics really help.
Also, if there’s strong renewable energy potential and an attractive policy environment, you can sometimes achieve ROI in under one to two years depending on the location, which can be a very compelling low-capex route.”
4. Where to Start: Your Playbook for Low-Capex Portfolio Optimisation
What are the first steps real estate leaders should take to unlock fast wins without waiting for major refurb cycles?
See the full webinar in the link here: