Firms Gird for California's Sustainability Regulations

By Richard Berger

CBRE is among the firms that have committed to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across their value chains by 2040, including compliance with two California sustainability regulations – SB 253 and SB 261, which, in a few weeks, will get their day in court.

CBRE’s strategy applies to corporate operations, client-managed buildings, real estate development, and its supply chain.

“Accurately tracking our emissions is foundational to understanding where we are on this journey,” Marcella Thompson, its Head of Corporate Sustainability, told GlobeSt.com.

“Emissions reporting is only as good as the data itself, which requires strong collaboration across the organization and with external partners. Just as we expect high-quality data from our suppliers, we know that CBRE is a major supplier to many of the world's largest companies.”

She said this is one reason why it recently developed a service-based GHG emissions allocation methodology to provide its clients with accurate data for their own Scope 3 emissions reporting.

Service-based GHG emissions allocation is a method of partitioning greenhouse gas emissions from a single source or facility that provides multiple goods or services. This allocation is necessary when a company cannot directly measure the emissions attributable to each specific service or product and must instead divide the total emissions based on a chosen metric.

“There’s no single solution that meets all of our GHG emissions reporting challenges, and we have invested in a variety of technology platforms, data models, and quality controls to improve how we track emissions continually,” Thompson said.

“Third-party verification of our emissions data is an essential final step to ensure completeness and accuracy in what we report. Altogether, we are well-prepared for compliance with SB 253 in 2026.”

Last year, CBRE released its first Climate Transition Strategy, which provides a roadmap for decarbonization across its entire business.

At the time, it was developed to share our GHG emissions and climate-related risks and opportunities with our investors, clients, and other interested stakeholders. Because our Climate Transition Strategy followed recommendations of the TCFD, CBRE’s existing disclosures already met the requirements of SB 261, pending the results of the litigation.”

Climate-Related Financial Risk Act Heads to Court

The constitutional challenge to California’s SB 261 (Climate-Related Financial Risk Act) is now moving into its critical next phase, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals prepares to hear opening arguments in early 2026.

The case, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, challenges the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on First Amendment grounds over the law’s climate risk disclosure requirements.

While enforcement of SB 261 has been paused pending appeal—delaying disclosures originally slated for Jan. 1—the upcoming oral arguments mark the formal beginning of the courtroom battle over whether California can compel large companies to report climate-related financial risks.

Earning Carbon Credits

One firm managing corporate sustainability reporting is CheckSammy, which directs waste diversion for the industrial assets of many national retail and real estate operators.

CheckSammy’s ZeroPoint Facilities are advanced recycling and waste management hubs that help businesses, especially retailers, divert product returns, unsellable products, and hard-to-recycle materials from landfills by using unique material-specific streams to sort, separate, recycle, and repurpose them.

Its platform provides transparent, data-driven reporting on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) goals, enabling brands to demonstrate their sustainability efforts through verified diversion analytics and certificates of destruction, which in turn can lead to carbon credit generation.

“We turn expense into value by helping companies earn carbon credits,” CheckSammy CEO Sam Scoten told GlobeSt.com. “The byproduct of our data is the granular proof that things were picked up and brought to recycling centers.”

CheckSammy removes product from packaging, sorts mixed recycling streams (plastics, metals, e-waste, and textiles, for example), and helps repurpose excess materials into new, usable product, supporting the circular economy.

Its ZeroPoint Facilities in Nevada, Texas, Florida, and Indiana span more than 500,000 square feet and handle, for example, post-consumer product returns for major retailers.

Its data is 99.97% accurate. The .03 is the dust created through the process. Approximately 50 million pounds of materials have been recycled since May.

This story originally appeared in GlobeSt.com.