Visual Lease, a vendor of lease optimization software, announced VL ESG Steward, "a solution designed to track and report on the environmental impact of an organization's owned and leased asset portfolio," according to a company release.

According to the company, the tool allows businesses to consolidate data from different types of leases, including commercial real estate, fleet, and equipment, to track results for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals and reporting.

Increasingly, the CRE industry and companies owning or leasing CRE-type properties are under pressure from investors and governments to monitor and improve environmental performance and to document the potential impact properties face. CRE owners and operators have challenges both in having commonly accepted approaches to measurement and reporting, and also in trying the information to properties for aggregated reporting.