Corporate content
SPONDA – SUSTAINABILITY IN EVERYTHING WE DO
What is sustainability? To us at Sponda, it is an integral part of our strategy and it defines our
operations now and in the future. Through our ambitious and awarded* sustainability work, we
want to create even more added value for our customers, employees, business partners and other stakeholders. We also want to continue developing vibrant and sustainable urban environments.
What does sustainability and specifically our Community engagement initiative look like for our
employees and the communities we operate in? We build our engagement work on three pillars.
The first pillar covers the environmental and social responsibility events such as free-entry events and theme days organised in Sponda’s shopping centres. The second pillar consists of making donations to various charities, which we do regularly.
The last, but definitely not the least pillar, is our volunteering programme, giving each employee the opportunity to spend one to two workdays a year doing volunteer work. An idea originally put forth by our CEO Christian Hohenthal last year, concrete action to combat environmental or social issues has proved meaningful to many employees. Volunteer work projects were mapped together with the personnel. Environmental and social responsibility projects were then selected. After the marine litter collection campaign, where we cleaned a Helsinki beach from marine litter, we took part in Hurstinapu’s food distribution during the Autumn.
How about our customers then? Every day, over 30,000 people work in office spaces managed by us. We want to encourage all our stakeholders to implement sustainable ways of working. We also want to create additional value for our customers through sustainability – by converting the office or retail space from an expense to a competitive advantage. Sustainability is a key element when customers look for an office space these days. This was evident once again for us, when the internationally known pioneer in vintage fashion, Beyond Retro chose our Forum shopping centre as their first store location in Finland. They wanted premises and a partnership that could match their high values of sustainability.
Most of our properties have a BREEAM or LEED environmental certification**. In addition to
planning sustainable new buildings that stand the test of time, we also carefully renovate and
maintain the culturally historical buildings in central Helsinki, for example. By doing this, we keep the history of the city alive and continue to create vibrant, urban environments for everyone.
Here are some examples of how sustainability can make a difference for our customers:
- Smaller carbon footprint: energy-efficient properties, ecological use of space
- Significant cost savings: optimising energy consumption, maximising the savings
- Brand value: implementing sustainable values into corporate culture with partnership
programmes, sustainability data to communicate environmental actions - Ecological transport: properties located in central traffic hubs, close to services
- Health and wellbeing: sustainable and ergonomic spaces, optimal working conditions are
sought with proactive maintenance and property automation - Solutions for the future: electric car charging points, renewable energy production,
latest IoT technology in our development projects
This is what being sustainable means to us! Read more about our commitment to sustainability:
https://sponda.fi/en/about-us/sustainability/
Pirkko Airaksinen, Head of ESG
*We have been among the top companies for ten years in the GRESB Real Estate Assessment and last year, we were chosen as one of the most sustainable real estate companies globally and a Sector Leader.
** 81% of the property portfolio is environmentally certified by the property value