A conversation with Daniele Tumietto on why the “G” in ESG is the most underrated lever in office real estate
When we talk about ESG in office real estate, the conversation almost always gravitates toward the E and the S, emissions, certifications, well-being programs, inclusion policies. The G, governance, tends to be treated as a box-ticking exercise. Daniele Tumietto sees it differently. A compliance expert and board member of CiDATAX Srl a company of Avask Group, a global tax and advisory firm operating across multiple jurisdictions, Tumietto argues that governance is the mechanism that determines whether any ESG commitment actually works, or remains a declaration.
We sat down to discuss what governance means when applied not to corporate reporting, but to the physical environment where work happens every day.
The gap between policy and behavior
Pietro Martani: Most organizations today have ESG strategies. Environmental targets, social programs, formal policies. But you’ve made a point that I think is underappreciated: none of it matters unless it changes how people behave inside the workspace. Can you elaborate?
Daniele Tumietto: The issue is straightforward. You can design a sustainable building, install the best air filtration, optimize energy consumption and still fail, because the people inside the building don’t align with any of it. If employees don’t understand what the organization is trying to achieve, you get what I call the boomerang effect: the investment is there, the intention is there, but the outcome is indifference, or worse, cynicism.
The real question isn’t whether you have ESG principles. It’s whether those principles are visible in the daily experience of work. When they are, something interesting happens: positive behavior becomes contagious. People imitate what they see. And when that dynamic takes hold, you need less formal control, because the system starts to regulate itself.
PM: So governance, in your view, is less about rules and more about creating the conditions for self-regulation?
DT: Precisely. Rules are necessary, but insufficient. Governance is the architecture that connects intention to reality. It includes accountability, every action within a workspace should answer to someone, not in a bureaucratic sense, but as part of a shared responsibility. It includes risk management, people need to know that safety, maintenance, operational continuity are not left to chance. And critically, it includes measurability. When you have reliable data, you can compare, improve, and demonstrate that the system works.
What investors and employees now expect
PM: You mention measurability. This connects to a shift I’m seeing on two fronts: investors demanding evidence of governance quality, and employees looking beyond salary at the actual conditions of the workplace. How do these two pressures converge?
DT: They converge in the workspace itself. An investor looking at a company today wants to see structured KPIs, audit processes, operational continuity plans, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and a well-managed supply chain. These are not abstract categories, they manifest physically in how offices are run.
On the employee side, something has fundamentally changed. People no longer accept vague wellness claims. They want to understand what the working environment actually delivers. Is the space well-maintained? Are services consistent? Is there real attention to health and comfort, or just a policy document nobody reads?
The workspace has become the place where governance is tested daily. It’s where the gap between what an organization declares and what it actually delivers becomes immediately visible.
The office-as-a-service model: governance by design
PM: This brings us to a structural question. Managing a modern workspace with its technology layers, service expectations, regulatory requirements, and user experience demands, is increasingly complex. Is it realistic for most organizations to handle this internally?
DT: For most, no. And this is where the model shift becomes critical. Think about what happened with IT infrastructure. Twenty years ago, companies ran their own data centers. Today, most rely on cloud services, not because they lack competence, but because specialized providers deliver better performance, security, and scalability.
The same logic applies to workspace. When an organization delegates space management to a specialized operator, what we call office-as-a-service it’s not outsourcing a cost center. It’s accessing a higher standard of governance. The operator manages services, technology, compliance, safety, and experience as an integrated system. The organization’s management can focus on core business.
PM: Avask operates this way.
DT: Yes. Avask is a global firm with offices across many countries. The decision to rely on managed workspace is explicitly strategic. Country managers don’t spend their time negotiating cleaning contracts or troubleshooting HVAC systems. They concentrate on what generates value. Meanwhile, the workspace meets consistent governance standards across every location, which is essential when you operate in highly regulated environments spanning multiple jurisdictions.
From compliance to infrastructure
PM: There’s a broader point here about how European regulation is evolving. The emphasis is shifting from formal compliance to substantive accountability, from documenting policies to proving they work.
DT: Exactly. And this is where many organizations will be caught off guard. It’s no longer sufficient to have governance on paper. You need to demonstrate it in practice, at any moment. This applies to workplace management as much as to financial reporting.
When governance is concrete, when you have platforms generating real-time data on space utilization, service quality, environmental performance, you can anticipate needs rather than react to problems. You can show an auditor, an investor, or an employee exactly how the system operates.
PM: Which transforms the office from a static asset into something closer to a managed service platform.
DT: That’s the trajectory. And it has direct ESG implications. Shared services and pay-per-use models reduce waste and align costs with actual consumption. The environmental footprint shrinks. Financial flexibility increases. And the quality of the experience improves, because you’re relying on operators whose core competency is making workspaces work.
Governance, in this context, becomes the convergence point, where efficiency, sustainability, and long-term value creation meet. It’s not a background function anymore. It’s the operating system.
Daniele Tumietto is a senior compliance expert and board member of CiDATAX srl, wholly owned by the Avask Group. Avask is a global tax and advisory firm supporting the e-commerce sector across multiple jurisdictions.
