Our CR&S Approach

Commercial Property

Our evolving Commercial Property sustainability policy

In July 2008, the office, industrial and retail businesses were combined to form the Commercial Property business unit.

Bringing together these different asset classes in one business revealed that we needed a consolidated CR&S strategy for Commercial Property, and a policy consistent with the Residential sustainability policy.

A workshop held in May 2009 involving key internal Commercial Property stakeholders identified that stakeholder and customer engagement are important to the future success of the business unit. Over the past year, customer engagement on sustainability matters has included working with tenants on eco-efficiency through the Sustainability Advantage program (run by the Department of Environment and Climate Change), continuing to implement our Retail Green Fitout Guide and supporting sustainable industrial property design by establishing our North Lakes Business Park Green Business Fund.

Implementing revised stakeholder engagement plans

During FY09 we developed a consistent approach to the way we identify and prioritise stakeholders at all assets. Our aim was to empower all employees at a project level to own and manage the relationships and engage with their local communities.

As a part of this strategy, two stakeholder engagement templates were launched - one for development assets and one for operating assets. Most of our retail centres and retail development projects now have stakeholder engagement plans (SEPs) in place. A common approach is being adopted across the business with a focus on ensuring we routinely identify key stakeholders, their expectations and priority issues. In support of this, early work has been done to integrate this strategy at our largest and most complex office and industrial projects including our Moorebank intermodal site in Sydney.

A key challenge for the year ahead will be to revise and put these plans into operation as our needs and the needs of our stakeholders change.

Developing the Commercial Property sustainability strategy

We have started to revise our Commercial Property sustainability strategy. We commenced this process through internal and external workshops, stakeholder interviews, market research, peer analysis, media coverage and our own external assurance process.

The four sustainability priority areas were:

• Customer relationships,
• Community relationships,
• Climate change and energy,
• Natural resources (water, waste and biodiversity).

The development of action plans that address the material issues in these focus areas are a feature of our revised strategy. Particular attention will be given to customer, community and supplier engagement strategies, job creation, low carbon technologies, high-performing buildings, green regulation and rating tools.

Commercial Property information in this report

The first of these priority areas, customer relationships, is included in the customers and suppliers section of this report and includes information on how we are engaging with our Commercial Property tenants on sustainability and ways that we collect information from our customers on their experience, such as Mystery Shopper and customer feedback programs at our retail centres. Our approach to stakeholder engagement is provided on the stakeholder engagement page.

The climate change and energy section details how we are improving energy efficiency in our new and existing buildings, and the NABERS Energy and Water ratings for each of our buildings is included in the natural resources section. This section also includes waste and water data for our Commercial Property portfolio.