How a company thinks about its contribution to the economy, its people as well as the environment and social fabric of the communities it serves is increasingly becoming an expectation of consumers. Written exclusively for SCN, Peter Allen, CEO, Scentre Group, outlines his company’s approach to sustainability. It’s the epitome of a corporate commitment to social progress!
Scentre Group’s purpose has been constant since our company was established in 2014, guiding our culture and decision-making as we have grown our business: creating extraordinary places, connecting and enriching communities.
As the owner and operator of 41 Westfield living centres across Australia and New Zealand, we are conscious of delivering on our purpose with a responsible business mindset and approach. This is supported by our DNA – the values that underpin our organisation.
Our Sustainable Business Framework includes four focus areas: our community, our people, our environmental impact and our economic performance. It encapsulates how we create a long-term, sustainable business that satisfies the needs of stakeholders, including our employees, security-holders, retail partners, suppliers, communities and customers.
Scentre Group 2018 Sustainability Report highlights
While we have been delivering to internal targets for our people and environmental impact since we were established, this is the first year we have externally communicated targets for these focus areas. This reflects our desire to be more transparent and create awareness of what we have achieved to date and clarity on our future priorities.
During 2018, we continued to rise to the challenge of meeting customers’ needs against the backdrop of a dynamic retail sector and ever-changing expectations. Advocacy for the experience we provide in our living centres has improved significantly, demonstrating that our focus on listening and responding to our customers is delivering results.
One of the strengths of our business is our vertical integration. We design, build, operate and market our centres with the future requirements of our customers in mind. This end-to-end approach also reflects the way we manage risks.
‘People Protecting People’ is embedded into our culture and encapsulates how each of our teams takes responsibility and accountability for both physical safety and mental wellbeing. I am proud of our teams in Western Australia and Queensland who were acknowledged with awards from their respective work safety authorities.
We’ve seen first-hand the positive impact of Australia’s MATES in Construction (MIC) program on our employee and contractor mental health. Our New Zealand construction team has led the Auckland industry – a region currently experiencing a construction boom – and the MIC Australia team to establish the program in New Zealand.
To help us better connect with and enrich our local communities, we launched our Westfield Local Heroes program in 2018. The response from our customers and communities was nothing short of phenomenal for our first year, with 1,037 individuals nominated and over 77,000 votes cast. Our 117 inaugural Westfield Local Heroes each received a grant of $10,000, totalling $1.17 million, to further their vital work in addressing social needs in our local communities. The program has highlighted the exceptional contribution many individuals make to the social fabric of our communities.
1,037 individuals were nominated for the Westfield Local Heroes program in 2018
Our aspiration to be ‘the place where talent thrives’ continues to drive strong employee engagement and retention, and our targets are focused on maintaining this leadership position.
Our Diversity and Inclusion strategy is gaining momentum across our company, as more leaders complete our inclusive management program. Our Diversity and Inclusion agenda is led by our employees, who voluntarily engage in activities across seven working groups focused on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI), Mental Health and Wellbeing, Domestic and Family Violence, Gender Representation, Reconciliation Action Plan, Cultural Capability and All Abilities.
Recognising the work of our LGBTI Working Group, we were awarded bronze status at the 2018 AWEI Awards as a leading employer in LGBTI inclusion.
On a personal note, I have continued to participate in initiatives that focus on leadership engagement to support gender equality through my role as a Male Champion of Change in the property industry and a Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) Ambassador for Pay Equity. We were acknowledged by WGEA as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality and I’m pleased to report we have no pay gap for like roles by gender and females represent 41% of all people managers, with 26.5% at senior executive level. By the end of 2021, we will increase representation of female executives from 26.5% to 30%. Our target to achieve representation of 40% female, 40% male and 20% either gender across all management roles was achieved in 2018 and we are focused on maintaining this.
We continue to reduce our energy consumption, build our assets to be climate resilient, divert waste from landfill and promote recycling.
In 2018, we achieved our target to reduce emissions intensity based on GLA by 25% across our Australian operations ahead of our target year of 2025. We have updated this target to reduce emissions intensity by 35% by 2025 portfolio-wide compared with our 2009 baseline.
We reduced electricity usage across our living centre portfolio by 4.1% and through our influence, our retail partners reduced their annual energy use by 5.4%. There are many factors contributing to this result but the most important is our people’s behaviour and local decisions to ensure our assets perform more efficiently.
As part of our building management systems, our centre teams can access a dashboard that tracks energy consumption, and a digital platform, Maintenance Connection, captures asset equipment performance data for analysis and optimisation. Westfield Penrith reduced electricity use by 13.6% and Westfield Geelong by 11.4% from tuning their building management system, improving lighting schedules and adjusting temperature set points.
Westfield Coomera
We have continued to invest in solar energy across our portfolio and our solar systems at Westfield Marion (SA), Westfield Plenty Valley (Vic), Westfield Carousel (WA), Westfield Kotara (NSW) and Westfield Coomera (Qld) now have a generation capacity of 9GWh per year and are contributing to a reduction in carbon intensity.
Some weeks, Westfield Coomera’s solar generation accounts for more than half of the centre’s peak electrical load.
We are actively designing developments to be climate resilient and undertook a portfolio scenario analysis last year. This included an assessment of our portfolio’s exposure to historic and future climate extremes, as well as asset-level analysis on specific climate variables.
We consider our portfolio-wide level of risk to be ‘low’ based on this scenario analysis as well as additional internal analyses conducted during the year. We are committed to ensuring all new developments and designs incorporate 5-star Green Star design guidelines as a minimum by 2025 and will reach an average Retail NABERS rating of 4.5 stars by 2025 across our portfolio.
We reduced our total construction waste by 32% and increased our recycling rate of building materials to 99.8%. We have committed to increasing our waste recovery from operations to 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030.
We are focused on delivering long-term, sustainable returns for our security-holders, with an enduring responsibility to deliver growth and create a positive legacy. Our centres stimulate significant local economic activity and improve the quality of local infrastructure and social amenities.
In 2018, we opened more than $1.1 billion worth of development works across four Australian states – Westfield Carousel (WA), Westfield Kotara (NSW), Westfield Tea Tree Plaza (SA) and Westfield Plenty Valley (Vic), and a new greenfield centre, Westfield Coomera (Qld) – generating almost 15,000 jobs in construction, with a further 1,400 permanent roles in retail.
For 2019 and beyond, I know there is more we can do. I am excited about our company’s ability to remain focused on the future, continuing to adapt to what our customers want and ensuring our centres continue to play an essential role in our customers’ lives and their communities.
