The journey forward

At Urban&Civic, we have set ourselves ambitious goals on sustainable value creation with a five-year time horizon towards 2025, commencing October 2020. The business has laid out its agreed framework, our five capitals with their key objectives, and defined action areas and metrics which span a host of important and intersecting sustainability activity.

This year marks the end of the first five-year period for the sustainability metrics we set in 2020. There has been significant progress towards delivering more sustainable outcomes and being a more sustainable business over this time. The business performed well against the 2025 Metrics reflecting how the key learnings have been embedded together with a culture of doing things more sustainably.

We’ve also made good progress towards net zero. This includes the continued rollout of solar arrays on many sites, accelerating our transition to clean renewable energy. Additionally, we have revised our Map to net zero, reflecting the changes to our portfolio, aligning it with the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard and updating the decarbonisation assumptions underpinning it. We’ve introduced interim 2030 targets aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for all scopes, with an understanding that Scope 1 and 2 emissions and Scope 3 emissions aren’t likely to reach net zero until 2035 and 2045 respectively due to the uncertainty around grid decarbonisation.

The sustainability agenda continues to evolve, with increasing pressures around resource management, social impact, and climate resilience. The challenges are complex, but we are well positioned to continue adapting and innovating.

Keeping the Framework relevant

Over the past year, we have undertaken a detailed review of our approach and performance to inform what we target for the next five years by engaging with the business at all levels and wider stakeholders in a double materiality assessment – how the business impacts on the environment and society and the corresponding opportunities and risks to the business over the medium term. The outcomes of this study helped us to develop a revised set of metrics for the period 2026-30 that align with the business strategy and also provide valuable information for the business to measure.

Going forward, certain changes are necessary however to make the Sustainability Framework relevant for the next five years:

The ‘Biodiversity’ universal challenge will now become ‘Nature’ reflecting the wider environmental challenges we face of water scarcity and resource depletion. The ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Health and Wellbeing’ universal challenges will not change.
The aim and objective of each Capital has been updated.
Metrics for our Catesby business have been introduced to reflect its increase in materiality to the business following the L&Q Estates acquisition.
Various action areas and metrics have been amended to reflect feedback and business priorities.