How do we deliver social benefit?

Prioritising social benefit

Our vision is to put mitigating climate change and the promotion of healthy, inclusive, and economically resilient businesses and communities at the heart of everything we do.

We drive positive environmental and social change across our portfolio by ensuring we innovate, for example by trialling new sustainable building materials, as well as by integrating environmental measures into all our investment decisions and during the building design process. 

We also ensure the well-being of our staff, tenants, occupiers, visitors and the local communities who spend time in and around our assets, for example by measuring the air quality in and around our assets.

Our strategy for delivering social benefit is an ambitious but essential one. It identifies five priority areas where we believe we can have the most measurable impact on social and environmental sustainability. It also defines 25 bold targets we are determined to achieve by 2025.

To help guide us and measure our success, we have chosen to align our strategy with relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, and we will openly report on our progress. We also support projects that allow our portfolio to receive vital ESG accreditations including BREEAM, LEED and GRESB.

We are confident that our farsighted vision, our committed, professional and passionate team and our openness to collaborating and innovating will support the realisation of our ambitions.

View our social benefit strategy

Our five priority areas

Sustainable buildings

Sustainable businesses and communities

Health and wellbeing

Nature

Net zero carbon

Achieve net zero operational carbon for directly controlled buildings by 2030 and achieve net zero operational & embodied carbon for all buildings by 2050. Read more about our approach to net zero carbon below.

Sustainable buildings

Improve the sustainability credentials and climate resilience of our assets, implement circular economy initiatives to reduce energy, water and waste, and increase the use of sustainable materials.

Sustainable businesses and communities

Address local community and business needs, engaging in activities that promote inclusiveness, accessibility, fair and equal opportunity, and promote more sustainable lifestyles.

Health and wellbeing

Improve the mental and physical health and wellbeing of people at all assets through actions to improve air quality, and indoor environments.

Nature

Increase biodiversity at all sites through initiatives such as urban greening, farming and natural habitat creation.

Net zero carbon

Sustainable buildings

Improve the sustainability credentials and climate resilience of our assets, implement circular economy initiatives to reduce energy, water and waste, and increase the use of sustainable materials.

Sustainable businesses and communities

Address local community and business needs, engaging in activities that promote inclusiveness, accessibility, fair and equal opportunity, and promote more sustainable lifestyles.

Health and wellbeing

Improve the mental and physical health and wellbeing of people at all assets through actions to improve air quality, and indoor environments.

Nature

Increase biodiversity at all sites through initiatives such as urban greening, farming and natural habitat creation.

Our Goal: Net Zero

One of the most effective ways we can minimise our impact on the environment, and future-proof our business activities, is to reduce the carbon emissions of our real estate portfolio.

In 2019, we were one of the first signatories of the Better Buildings Partnership and World Green Building Council net zero carbon commitments. Our commitment is to ensure buildings within our direct control will operate at net zero carbon by 2030, and all buildings (directly and indirectly managed) to achieve embodied and operational net zero carbon by 2050.

In 2020, we launched our net zero carbon strategy, which will guide us to our first target in our net zero journey. Our aim is to reduce our total carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.

This strategy was approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in early 2021, and verified in line with the most ambitious trajectory of the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to 1.5^oC.

How will we reach net zero?

The first target in our net zero carbon journey is to reduce our total carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. To do so, we will focus on three areas:

Cutting energy use in buildings by a third;
Cutting the embodied carbon intensity of our developments by 50%; and
Cutting the carbon intensity of purchased goods and services by at least 60%.

Energy use in buildings

We will reduce energy consumption in our buildings by an average of a third between 2020 and 2030. We will ensure that the energy use intensity of our assets aligns with industry-leading net zero carbon definitions. We will implement measures to reduce energy consumption in landlord areas and conduct net zero carbon audits to identify initiatives to improve the fabric of buildings and tenant areas. We will develop green lease clauses, tenant engagement plans and improve sub-metering to address tenant consumption.

Purchased goods and services

We will reduce carbon emissions per unit spend by 60% on average. We will do this by introducing new supplier terms that prioritise access to supplier-specific carbon data. We will encourage our suppliers to set science-based carbon reduction targets of their own. We will also require more detailed breakdowns of materials, plant and equipment used in our refurbishments to better quantify carbon impacts from purchased goods.

New developments

We will target the most stretching embodied carbon benchmarks in the market today for commercial and residential developments, reducing embodied carbon per square metre by 50% compared with typical practice. Though not included in the pathway figures, we are committed to ensuring new developments are built to highly energy efficient standards, consistent with leading 2030 industry energy performance benchmarks.

Other

This includes emissions from business travel, waste and water and employee commuting. Emissions will be reduced by reducing mains water consumption, diverting 100% of waste from landfill and setting targets to reduce emissions from business travel. Reducing energy consumption in our buildings will also drive carbon savings from upstream transmission and distribution of electricity.

Executive Summary

Read a summary of our net zero carbon strategy

Our Goal: Net Zero

Read our full net zero carbon strategy