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CR&S 2010<br />
Our approach<br />
<strong>Stockland</strong> UK<br />
UK Approach<br />
In August 2009, we announced our<br />
intention to embark on an orderly sale of<br />
assets in the United Kingdom (UK) over<br />
a timeframe of two to three years. As a<br />
result, the UK business unit’s strategy<br />
in relation to CR&S has been amended<br />
to reflect the new circumstances of the<br />
business. This has particularly affected<br />
our actions in relation to the energy<br />
initiatives being carried out across<br />
the portfolio and collection of carbon<br />
footprint data.<br />
Following the announcement of our<br />
exit from the UK market, we made the<br />
decision to cease collecting carbon data<br />
for the UK portfolio except when required<br />
for compliance purposes. This data had<br />
originally been collected with a view to<br />
helping us measure the improvement<br />
in performance of our portfolio over the<br />
long term. With the UK business now<br />
having a finite lifespan we believe that the<br />
value of collecting and analysing this data<br />
would not be offset sufficiently by any<br />
short-term benefits.<br />
We have collated data for our Carbon<br />
Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy<br />
Efficiency Scheme obligations for the<br />
2008 year and will be finalising our<br />
information disclosure reporting in time<br />
for the 30 September 2010 deadline.<br />
We continue to comply with Energy<br />
Performance Certificates legislation<br />
across our portfolio.<br />
Over the past 12 months the UK<br />
business has placed a strong focus<br />
on the continued improvement of<br />
health, safety and environment<br />
across its portfolio.<br />
The business has been working to improve<br />
the safety and security of both employees<br />
and customers.<br />
Business Climate<br />
Market conditions in the UK remain<br />
difficult. Capital values have recovered<br />
somewhat but the economic downturn is<br />
still putting downward pressure on rents.<br />
It is widely believed, however, that capital<br />
values have reached a floor and modest<br />
growth is expected over the next couple<br />
of years.<br />
Employees in the UK were disappointed<br />
by the announcement in August 2009<br />
that we would embark on an orderly<br />
sale of assets in the UK. As a result, our<br />
engagement score dropped significantly<br />
in our employee survey from 79 per cent<br />
to 44 per cent favourable. UK employees<br />
have also been affected by redundancies<br />
which were necessary to right-size the<br />
business as workload decreased with the<br />
sale of assets and loss of management<br />
contracts. We have, however, continued<br />
to invest in learning and development<br />
opportunities for UK employees and<br />
in FY10 we provided an average of<br />
2.25 training days per person.<br />
Our employees remained committed<br />
to giving and volunteering initiatives and<br />
raised money to fund two events in the<br />
year with Starlight Children’s Foundation,<br />
one of which was the children’s<br />
Christmas Party at St Mary’s hospital<br />
in Paddington, London.<br />
We expect retention to be a key challenge<br />
in FY11. Although the UK job market<br />
is generally poor, given time, many<br />
employees will be able to find work<br />
elsewhere. It is likely that certain roles<br />
will need to be covered by fixed-term<br />
contractors in the future.<br />
28<br />
<strong>Stockland</strong> Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Report June 2010