Our purpose is to “empower business and unlock potential”. This includes conducting our business in an honest and ethical manner. How we behave to our employees and all our stakeholders is core to our business growth and clearly represented through our purpose, values and culture. At the centre of our ethics is how we govern and manage our Company through the Board and our Sustainability and Ethics Committee and throughout the organisation, as well as the policies we promote and live by and the relationships and transparency we maintain with our stakeholders.
Strategic goal
Ensure our governance structures and policies support our strategy and enable us to identify and manage ESG risks and opportunities.
Objectives
1: Encourage and support the development and management of ESG through appropriate structures and programmes
Robust governance structures underpin our ESG strategy with clear oversight responsibilities at Board and executive level. The Board will continue to assume overall responsibility and accountability for the management of climate-related and social risks and opportunities, with ESG included on the agenda at every meeting. As Chair of the Sustainability and Ethics Committee, the CEO will provide regular updates to the Board on ESG matters and work with executive management to shape policy and strategy to improve the Group’s environmental and social performance. Via this Committee, the Board also receives reports from the ESG Committees and TCFD Working Group, headed by the Chief Marketing and Impact Officer, Kremena Wissel.
We commit to carrying out materiality assessments to assess ESG progress every three years with the next due in FY2023/24.
Executive Directors and qualifying staff will continue to be set annual objectives on ESG matters. As we develop more detailed environmental and social targets, for example on our decarbonisation and net-zero pathway, it is our intention that these will be considered as part of the management review and remuneration processes and disclosed accordingly for full transparency.
2: Put processes in place to identify and manage ESG-related risks and opportunities
We have a transparent approach to risk, with management and reporting overseen by our Board and Audit Committee. We will ensure our risk management process and framework accounts for ESG-related factors and timeframes, with regular reviews.
To understand the climate resilience of our entire portfolio, we are committed to continuing with an in-depth assessment and management of transitional and physical risks and opportunities, in compliance with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). This includes identifying and reporting climate-related risks and opportunities that may arrive in the short, medium and long term. During the current year, we will be integrating BizSpace into the TCFD methodology for the first time. This will include undertaking a 1.5–2.0°C scenario in line with the Paris Agreement, as well as a late mitigation scenario of 3.0–4.0°C of climate change for both BizSpace and Sirius’ German portfolio.
A physical risk assessment for a sample of UK and German assets will also be completed. We will integrate these TCFD findings into our risk management process and report within FY2022/23. As part of our risk process, we have also integrated environmental, social and governance factors such as climate and biodiversity into our pre-acquisition due diligence process.
3: Effectively engage with employees, shareholders, tenants, suppliers and business partners to promote our ESG objectives and ambitions
Understanding the views and priorities of all our stakeholders is key to our long-term performance. We will continue to regularly consult them to gather insights on operational, strategic and ESG issues. This will include both our triennial materiality assessment and more regular surveys gauging levels of satisfaction.
Acting on feedback from employees that they want to get more involved, we will create processes in FY2022/23 to engage our workforce and keep them well informed as we deliver the decarbonisation pathway. This will be done through CEO forums, the Sirius Training Centre and environmental training, starting with employees and longer-term involving other stakeholders.
In FY2023/24 we will continue to engage with our stakeholders, including tenants, suppliers and business partners. As we set out our decarbonisation pathway towards net-zero, this will include a programme of awareness, education, engagement and cooperation with our stakeholders. We will act in partnership with our suppliers and tenants, both listening to their issues and working with them on solutions as part of our efforts to decarbonise our operations.
4: Ensure all our activities and procedures are in line with best practice and account for relevant UK/ German corporate regulations and codes
We will regularly review and update our Code of Conduct and policy documents to ensure we remain in line with best practice and the law, including the UK Corporate Governance Code, Companies Act, Bribery Act and Modern Slavery Act, as well as their German equivalents.
All ESG policies will be fully reviewed to ensure they are up to date in FY2022/23. We will also ensure our health and safety practices remain robust through raising awareness and training.
We will maintain a process for raising awareness of policies and carrying out employee training as appropriate.
5: Provide clear, consistent and transparent communications and reporting
Trust and reliability underpin our relationships with stakeholders. So, last but not least, we commit to providing consistent and accurate reporting of our ESG programme, including our progress against targets and KPIs. As the programme evolves, this will include more defined targets, which we will communicate consistently and transparently through our website, Annual Report and ESG Report. We are committed to maintaining open communication with investors, employees and tenants and to creating a process for monitoring their feedback and recognising their input in our decision making.
Staying engaged, aware and informed
We believe that our intention to continually update our ESG materiality assessment will enable us to focus on the areas that will have the most influence on our business performance and resilience in an economic manner to drive shareholder value. We will provide clear and consistent communication to all our stakeholders on our developments and engage, as appropriate, with the recognised ratings agencies