For the second year, the EPRA Sustainability Summit was held at British Land’s own Storey Club at 4 Kingdom Street, Paddington Central. EPRA is uniquely placed to facilitate sustainability matters across markets and geographies, creating space to learn from international best practice. This year’s summit covered topics ranging from climate resilience, reporting regulations, social and nature impacts. Simon Carter, British Land’s CEO, discussed how ESG continues to be a key focus for the Real Estate industry, both from a development and retrofitting perspective as well as exploring how social impact provides a competitive edge.

Our own Head of Environmental Sustainability, Matt Webster, participated in the panel,  “Stakeholder engagement: ESG reporting regulations and implementation challenges for Listed Real Estate companies”. The discussion revolved around the need for transparent, reliable and accessible data, how reporting is evolving from voluntary to regulated disclosures and how this might allow for more meaningful discussions with investors and financial parties. Matt made the point that better data and greater transparency will allow a wider understanding of what ‘good’ looks like across the industry. With the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) coming into force, the impact of this directive was the focus for many discussions. Double materiality assessments are the starting point for this and comments were made on how this process can be a useful mechanism for meaningful dialogue across organisations. 

Later, the focus turned to social sustainability and the challenges around data and reporting. British Land has a track record of building relationships with local communities and partners, where we have Community Engagement Managers at each of our campuses acting as custodians for the communities around British Land’s real estate. Capturing and quantifying social data has advanced in recent years, but standardisation and full transparency on methodologies need to further mature. 

Following the discussion, the audience were invited to ask questions to the panel. The financial cost of ESG was a topic several wanted to hear more about. Matt Webster, used the example of 3 Sheldon Square at Paddington, highlighting that whilst Capex is relatively easy to understand and cost, return on investment and impact on value can sometimes be more tricky to predict, but is often realised with strong customer demand for high quality, sustainable workspace.

Attending the event provided us with invaluable insights from our peers and partners across the real estate industry. The discussions highlighted potential opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing. 

Thank you to EPRA for organising this event and keeping the conversation going.