Bouwinvest aims to provide a solid return on real estate investments for institutional investors and their beneficiaries and to do this in a responsible manner. What this means is that we take a long-term view and environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria play a significant role in our investment strategy. We have integrated social, environmental, and/or ethical considerations in our core business strategy and operations to create more value for our stakeholders and generate better risk-adjusted financial returns for our investors. Sustainable and socially responsible investments and business operations play a key role in booking growth in a controlled manner, future-proofing our organisation and real estate investments and are a key factor in the role we want to play in tackling the challenges we all face today and in the future. In other words, we see sustainability as an inherent part of our corporate mission and our license to operate.
The Fund addresses a wide range of environmental and social issues, risks and opportunities during the various investment stages (from acquisition to management through to disposal). By identifying and managing those issues that are expected to impact investment performance and generate long-term business value, we seek to protect returns over the long term and future-proof our portfolio.
We believe that green buildings can help combat climate change, as well as generate numerous other wider social, economic, environmental and health benefits. Acting responsibly is therefore an integral part of the Fund’s investment strategy and we are certain it lowers risks, increases returns and increases lettability.
Sustainability ambition and strategy
Our ambition is to be in the leading group of sustainable real estate funds. We want to set the standard in our sector and create and sustain stakeholder value through effective integration of material ESG issues that lower risks and future-proof our real estate investments. The Fund has a responsible investment focus on environmental impact, stakeholder value and community engagement.
We aim for above-average sustainability performance at Fund and asset level.
Our long-term strategy to achieve this goal is based on three main pillars:
Increased Fund and building sustainability performance
Increased community and stakeholder engagement
Reduced environmental impact
Summary of responsible Fund and asset management
ESG strategy | Category | ESG targets 2017 | Results 2017 |
Increased fund and building sustainability performance | Fund | GRESB 4-star rating in 2019 | Achieved: GRESB 4-star rating in 2017 |
Improvement of overall GRESB score | Achieved: Increased total GRESB score by +9 points to 74 points |
Asset | 100% GPR-building label 2019 | On track: Coverage 25% in 2017. A total of 65 labels with an average score of 6.3 |
100% green (A, B, C) portfolio in 2018 | On track: Green portfolio up by 13 bps to 94.6; in total 559 improved labels; 130 D labels improved to a green label; 493 D labels still to be improved in 2018 |
Increased community and stakeholder engagement | People | Tenant satisfaction rate > 7 | Not Achieved: Average tenant satisfaction rating 6.8 |
Reduced environmental impact | Environment | Yearly reduction of energy consumption (like-for-like) by 2% | Not achieved: Like-for-like energy reduction of 1.7% |
Installed solar panels (WP) | Solar panels newly built property: EGW 565.900 kWh; APP 562.400 kWh |
| | Solar panels standing portfolio: EGW 1.163.700 kWh; APP 51.000 kWh |
75% of acquisitions have on-site renewable energy | Achieved: Over 90% of the acquisitions have on-site renewable energy |
The 2017 results will be explained in more in detail in the following sections.