GOVERNANCE OF SUSTAINABILITY ACTIVITIES

Our Sustainability team as the driving force

Our Sustainability team is located in Amsterdam and consists of four colleagues. Its primary responsibility is to drive progress of Mission 2040 – Redevco’s long-term sustainability ambition of achieving a Net Zero Carbon portfolio by 2040 – and to embed our mission into the organisation.

The Head of Sustainability reports to the Board member responsible for Research & Strategy, Innovation and Sustainability, and an ESG update is a standing agenda item at every Board meeting.

For the past few years, Redevco has been working with ‘workplans’ to determine key actions to be driven forward throughout the course of a year based on key strategic priorities and or specific functions within the organisation. The workplan for sustainability in 2022 focused on the following five key topics:

  • Improve automated capture of (tenant) energy consumption and corresponding emissions reporting robustness
  • Ensure (re)developments will contribute to downward emissions glidepath
  • Drive CO2 reduction of AUM
  • Assess green share of total tenant energy procurement
  • Increase on-site renewable energy generation

In line with the above, and to ensure that our GHG emissions reduction ambition gets properly implemented, the Sustainability team is working closely with the asset development teams in the different countries from the earliest stages of new projects. Ambitions and targets are determined together upfront and then communicated to the design teams. All investment proposals – for acquisitions as well as capex spend on (re)developments – are reviewed by the Sustainability team prior to deliberation by the Investment Committee to verify that the appropriate ESG actions are incorporated in the plans.

Furthermore, to ensure that relevant and appropriate ESG parameters are included in investment mandates, the team collaborates closely with colleagues representing our investor clients at Client & Fund Management.

Building knowledge and expertise on the impact of climate change on real estate assets is an important requirement to spur deliberate action at asset level. In 2022, the Sustainability team collaborated with the HR team to roll out a Climate 101 training which was co-developed with colleagues across the COFRA ecosystem to enhance that sustainability knowledge and expertise.

To inform and involve Redevco’s internal and external audiences, the Sustainability team collaborates with and is supported by the Redevco Corporate Communications team. In addition to spreading our message through creating various PR opportunities, the team also helps to internalise the recently launched mission. That started with the Redevco Board visiting all country offices in the last quarter of 2022 to formally launch and explain Redevco’s updated Mission Statement and to engage all colleagues on the importance of impact and sustainability in all we do in pursuit of that mission. Plenary as well as small group sessions, led by individual Board members, were held to reinforce the intent of the mission statement and how impact topics need to be seen on an equal footing to financial return requirements.

The Sustainability team will have an important role to help push the cultural and behavioural change necessary to deliver on this ambition in the years to come.

Wanting to be consistent with ambitions for our assets under management, we also strive to decrease Redevco’s own organisational carbon footprint.

The Sustainability team sets the corporate sustainability targets for our office operations, focusing on areas such as office energy use, company cars and air travel. Finally, the team is also responsible for coordinating the grant-making initiatives of the Redevco Foundation.

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