Sponda awarded a GRESB Green Star for the second time


Sponda Plc            Press release         4 September 2014 at 10:35 a.m.

Sponda awarded a GRESB Green Star for the second time

The property investment company Sponda has again been ranked among the best companies in the property sector in the international Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) survey. Sponda was awarded a Green Star recognition in the survey for the second year running.

The Green Star is awarded to companies in the property industry that measure, implement, manage and develop responsibility successfully as an integral part of their business operations. The annual GRESB survey has assessed the work done by companies in the property sector to promote sustainable development since 2009.

In the 2014 survey, Sponda’s overall result improved from the previous year, placing the company again in the top quartile of property companies. The survey assessed a total of 637 companies and funds, which manage some 56,000 properties globally.

Sponda received particular recognition in the aspects of risks and opportunities and corporate responsibility management, in which the company achieved some of the highest scores in the industry. The assessment includes all components of corporate responsibility, with companies evaluated comprehensively in areas ranging from company-level management, stakeholder co-operation and risk management to the energy consumption, energy certification, waste utilisation and environmental classification of individual properties.

“We are pleased that our efforts in the area of responsibility have again been recognised on the international stage. Our place among the top companies in the GRESB survey indicates that we are doing the right things to promote our corporate responsibility. We carefully analyse the results of international surveys, as we consider them to be a valuable tool in the continued development of our responsibility. The criteria and requirements of sustainability surveys become more demanding each year, which helps us improve our responsibility further,” says Hannamari Koivula, Sustainability Manager at Sponda.

GRESB implements the objectives of EPRA, the umbrella organisation for listed European property investment companies, with respect to developing the consistency and transparency of their reporting and the implementation of responsibility at the property level. The survey is consistent with the GRI international reporting framework, the GRI CRESS property sector reporting guidelines, the Dow Jones sustainable development index and the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

 

Sponda Plc


Additional information:
Hannamari Koivula, Sustainability Manager, Sponda Plc, tel. +358 40 581 9921

  

Sponda Plc is a property investment company specialising in commercial properties in the largest cities in Finland. Sponda’s business concept is to own, lease and develop retail and office properties and shopping centres into environments that promote the business success of its clients. The fair value of Sponda’s investment properties is approximately EUR 3.3 billion and the leasable area is around 1.4 million m².