We believe that maintaining our long-term financial performance depends
on our corporate reputation.
Therefore, the social, economic and environmental impacts of our business
are crucial to overall success. Our sustainability programme is developed
in conjunction with our advisors, Faber Maunsell, and our activities are
internally reviewed on an annual basis.
Principal objectives:
Corporate
- Complying, as a minimum benchmark, with all relevant legislation and working
towards good practice in sustainability.
- Seeking continuous improvement in performance and reporting progress on a
regular basis.
- Communicating our progress both internally and externally.
Urban regeneration
- Seeking to enrich and improve communities.
- As part of a mixed portfolio, develop mixed-use projects contributing to and
creating diverse and balanced communities.
- Developing relationships with and engaging with local stakeholders on our
approach to sustainability.
Youth and education
- Sponsoring and supporting youth programmes.
- Co-operating in educational initiatives to improve skills and training.
The environment
- Controlling and managing waste on our developments.
- Reducing energy and water consumption in our investment properties and development
sites.
- Continue devising travel to work plans for our developments.
Health & safety
- Implementing our Health & Safety policy, thereby ensuring the health
and safety of our employees and visitors.
- Through liaison with contractors applying best practice procedures on our
development sites.
The arts
- Sponsoring and supporting project-related initiatives.
The property industry
- Contributing through debate and sponsorship to the better working of the
industry.
Our sustainability targets can be found on our website: www.developmentsecurities.com.
The following describes a few of the key achievements this year.
Environment
During 2006, environmental concerns and issues of social cohesion attained
an ever higher profile. Our industry has been affected by these concerns.
In particular, in the course of 2006, the issue of carbon emissions became
a much higher priority for the occupier market, as well as for society at
large. For our industry, this means a step change; a responsible approach
to CO2 emission reduction now leads directly to commercial competitive advantage.
Once again new construction at PaddingtonCentral has achieved an Excellent
BREEAM rating, the world's most widely used environmental assessment method
for buildings. As reported last year, we are focusing more closely on one
particular issue of concern to our industry, namely the control and management
of waste generated by the construction process. At One Kingdom Street, Paddington
our contractor, Skanska, reports that as a result of our combined initiatives,
97 per cent of waste generated at PaddingtonCentral has been recycled from
site, with a further 2.7 per cent being sent to a transfer station for further
recycling. This means that only 0.3 per cent of the waste from this site
has gone to landfill (see figure 1 below).
Highlights this year also include the provision of land at Broughton to
create a 10-acre nature reserve adjacent to our development sites, the continuing
management of green travel plans at the Royal Docks, London and Cambourne,
Cambridge, and the use of innovative piling and bore hole technology in
our latest hotel and office buildings at PaddingtonCentral.
Figure 1 – Total site waste at PaddingtonCentral (m3)
Urban regeneration
Three of our projects rate a particular mention in relation to urban regeneration
in 2006:
- Oriental City, 399 Edgware Road, Colindale, London, NW. This mixed-use scheme
on an unexceptional part of the Edgware Road will combine Chinese and other
Far Eastern community uses, retail and 500 new housing units. Development
Securities will also develop its first school, to accommodate 420 pupils.
- Curzon Park, Birmingham. 1.4 million sq. ft. of offices and apartments is
planned for this run-down area where we are working with Birmingham City Council’s
broad regeneration objectives, which include the provision of a significant
new public park.
- Broughton, Flintshire. We continue to work with Flintshire District Council
to provide better transport links and infrastructure for the community as
well as affordable housing.
Youth and education
We were delighted to continue to support the Ascension Eagles, a cheerleading
team from East London, who are also British Champions. We were happy to
support this ambitious undertaking which promotes fitness and social interaction
among young people in Newham.
We were also able to work with Richard House Children’s Hospice,
organising with them a float for the Lord Mayor’s Show.
