Sirius owns more than 625,000 sqm of green space in Germany and the UK.
We take seriously our role in protecting, supporting, and expanding biodiversity across our portfolio. Our biodiversity strategy is focused on three pillars: meadows, trees and bees.
Meadows
Our biodiversity programme in Germany is well established and we are proud of the progress we continue to make. 37,200 sqm of green space has been converted into natural wildflower meadows across the portfolio since the biodiversity programme was implemented during FY2021/22, of which 13,377 sqm were converted in FY2022/23.
Trees
In Germany we have 9,629 trees across our portfolio which are looked after as part of our site-specific garden maintenance programmes. In addition to this, we continue to add to our corporate forest and plant one tree for every employee anniversary, conclusion of a rental agreement, completion of a tenant questionnaire and participation in a Sirius conference. Our partnership with Tree Nation funds tree planting in the Amazon, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Nepal and Spain. In line with our targets, in FY2022/23, we added 31,333 trees to our corporate forest from both German and UK activities, which accounted for 2,490 tons of carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere. These measures are in addition to our ongoing work to consider and improve our environmental impact, and do not constitute part of our carbon reduction or offsetting programme.
Bees
The third pillar of our biodiversity efforts relates to supporting and protecting bees, which we manage through our partnership with Hektar Nektar, which has, in line with our targets, enabled us to sponsor a total of 30 hives across Germany since FY2021/22, which is thought to have directly increased the bee population by almost 1.5 million bees.
The UK
In the UK, we have successfully mapped the BizSpace portfolio to identify opportunities for biodiversity improvements, which we will commence in the current year. We have over 200,000 sqm of green space, which includes approximately 86,000 sqm of grassed area, 49,000 sqm of planted area and 65,000 sqm of woodland. We are targeting the conversion of nearly 30% of the grassed area to wildflower meadows, equalling 25,000 sqm, by May 2023. We will undertake a tree count during the current year to understand our woodlands better and we are also starting to identify opportunities to support and protect bees in the UK and are working on suitable locations.