Decision-making:

Require ESG analysis to be included as a meaningful consideration for every strategic decision taken at board level [and through delegated authorities], and in every business case throughout the business.

Serving our clients:

Review all of our client service offerings to identify opportunities to enhance ESG integration and create a business plan for each service line to deliver those enhanced offerings across the property lifecycle.  To help our clients and their stakeholders anticipate and respond to evolving ESG requirements and opportunities and to further market discussions on related topics, we shall:  

• Deliver insights based on our delivery experience and proprietary research to helping our clients to navigate the ESG landscape 
• Seek out strategic partners with whom we can deliver innovative solutions to ESG issues 
• Align with and support confidently clients that have the foresight and ambition to bring forward novel solutions to key sustainability challenges.

Working with our suppliers:

Apply a values-based assessment of all supplier relationships, making our values known to all suppliers, aligning our procurement and performance management processes to our ESG values, and seeking to engage with and support our supply chain to bring them up to the standards which we set for ourselves.

Assessing and reporting our performance:

Implement an enhanced framework for reporting non-financial ESG impact data publicly and to the board and relevant committees for: 

• our consultancy services, including our progress in offering and delivering ESG advice, and the impact it has had on ESG factors, and
• our operations, relating to Our People, Our Environment and Our Community

Leverage best-in-class technology and data management systems to optimise the gathering, measurement, analysis and reporting of real world ESG outcomes delivered through our operations and client service. 

Make public commitments in relation to the above and provide independently verified public reports on our non-financial ESG performance on an annual basis. 

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Via Planet Mark, we have committed to nine of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

6. Clean Water and Sanitation
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation, And Infrastructure
11. Sustainable Cities And Communities
12. Responsible Consumption And Production
13. Climate Action
14. Life Below Water
15. Life on Land

These universal goals help us to invest in all aspects of our planet, to create better places.

Developing our people:

Deliver a best-in-class experience for our staff across pay, benefits, employment practices and in consideration of their health and wellbeing. 

Develop and implement a holistic framework to encourage and include diverse voices at all levels of our business, including in internal strategic decision-making bodies. 

Adapt our recruitment and performance management processes to explicitly include consideration of diversity and inclusion, and alignment to our values. 

Deliver training, guidance and adequate ESG-specialist resources to support all of our people in developing their understanding of ESG issues, building their confidence to discuss such issues with clients, and identify opportunities to integrate ESG into our service offerings.

Deliver training and guidance to every member of staff regarding the contents of this policy, and our expectations in terms of our positive culture and respectful treatment of all people with whom we come into contact through our work.  

Assessing and reporting our performance:

Implement an enhanced framework for measuring and reporting on relevant non-financial data. This will include, at least, consideration of our performance on health & wellbeing, empowerment, inclusivity, culture, engagement and alignment with our values.  

Deliver an enhanced framework for measuring diversity and inclusion across our workforce by seniority and in internal decision-making bodies, and set specific improvement targets in this respect. 

Identifying opportunities to improve:

Empower our sustainability committee to identify opportunities to implement best practices and innovative approaches across the business, including in how we engage with our stakeholders and suppliers.  

Achieving net zero carbon:

Alignment of our climate ambition to the SBTi’s 1.5 degree warming pathway.

We are committed to a 95% reduction in absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, against a 2020 baseline.

Our scope 3 reduction target is 50% by 2030, against a 2021 baseline.

To ensure that we meet our targets, we work in partnership with the internationally recognised sustainability certification Planet Mark.

As part of our involvement with Planet Mark, we agree to rigorous assessment of our operations, which enables us to demonstrate and report annually on the improvements made to the sustainability of our business.

Improving resource efficiency:

Develop a quantified pathway for waste reduction and water efficiency improvements across our operations. 

Assessing and reporting our performance:

Implement an enhanced framework for measuring and reporting on relevant non-financial data. This will include, as a minimum, consideration of our operational performance on energy efficiency, carbon emissions, waste generation and recycling rates, and water efficiency

Our community is one of the four pillars of our ESG & sustainability policy

Improving our social impact:

Identify opportunities where we can make a positive contribution to the communities within which we are based and work, for example by developing and assisting non-traditional employment practices and increasing opportunities for apprentices. 

Ensuring that our philanthropic work is focused both on developing our culture of inclusivity and maximising social impact, including through philanthropic means and by delivery of pro bono work.

Working with our industry:

Engage and collaborate openly with our peers and industry partners in seeking to disrupt the barriers to progress on key ESG challenges, notably in reducing carbon emissions and improving diversity within our industry at all levels, and to identify possible synergies with clients and other stakeholders to maximise positive social value.

Review and determine to which industry bodies and standards we should align our organisation and become an active participant and advocate of the same.  For example, we shall remain actively involved in the BBP Managing Agents Partnership. 

Assessing and reporting our performance:

Implement an enhanced framework for measuring and reporting on the social value we deliver as a business.  This should include, at least, the philanthropic activities and funds raised by our staff, training and development opportunities (including apprenticeships) delivered to the communities in which we work, pro bono services delivered, and the real world outcomes driven by all of these.  

Make public commitments in relation to the above and provide independently verified public reports on our non-financial ESG performance on an annual basis.