Event Recap  •  In Conversation With

Bridging the Economic Gap to Sustainable Real Estate

📅 11 June 2026  •  📍 Haworth Singapore Office  •  Organised by Annexion & Haworth

On the evening of 11 June 2026, Annexion and Haworth Singapore brought together a room of senior professionals from across the Built Environment for the latest edition of In Conversation With — a forum series designed to surface the conversations the industry needs to have, not the ones it is comfortable with.

The topic was the economic gap in sustainable real estate. Not the ambition. Not the targets. The harder question beneath all of it: who actually pays, who carries the risk, and who is responsible for making it work on the ground.

What the room talked about

Moderated by Ho Chee Kit, the panel opened with a provocation: decarbonisation in real estate is no longer a question of vision. The harder question is execution. And execution, the panel made clear, lives or dies on financial alignment.

Miak Ou, Senior Director, Head of Sustainability — SC Capital Partners

Justin Lau (China Construction Bank) brought the lender's perspective — how credit teams look beyond green labels to assess whether a borrower can demonstrate genuine performance improvement, and how regulatory alignment, P&L strength, and governance quality all factor into financing decisions. The message was clear: the bank conversation starts well before the loan application.

Justin Lau, Real Estate Finance Head — China Construction Bank

Joanna Chen (JLL) brought the operational dimension. Data collection, she argued, is not a sustainability output — it is the precondition for one. Without a reliable baseline, no bank conversation can begin, and no board commitment can be meaningfully delivered on the ground. The gap between boardroom intent and field-level execution is rarely about willpower. It is about governance structure and line of sight.

The panel in discussion at Haworth Singapore, 11 June 2026

Across the three sections of the discussion, the room kept returning to the same underlying tension: the people who set sustainability targets are often not the same people who have to fund, finance, or deliver them. Closing that gap requires more than ambition. It requires structured alignment across the entire asset lifecycle.

5 things the conversation kept coming back to

The panel

Watch the full conversation

This forum is part of Annexion's ongoing In Conversation With series, bringing together senior leaders from across the Built Environment for focused, honest conversations on the issues that matter. Watch the full recording on the Annexion YouTube channel.