Letter from Senior Management
GRI 2-22
Dear Readers,
2023 presented the real estate industry with a number of challenges, once again. The year was characterized by an energy crisis, disproportionately high growth in construction costs, rising interest rates and increasing inflation, as well as a shortage of skilled workers and tradespeople. Nevertheless, we remained committed to pursuing our ambitious goals.
As a responsible real estate company, we will continue to seek answers to current and future challenges. One of the main challenges is climate change. Along with risks, we believe that the situation offers many opportunities that we want to actively seize. We strive to inform you comprehensively and transparently about these risks and opportunities, as well as all of the other efforts we are making when it comes to sustainability. Our annual sustainability report, which is aimed at our stakeholders in particular and all interested readers in general, serves this purpose. As in the previous year, it is structured along the three dimensions of sustainable business – environment, social and governance, or ESG – and presents our sustainability strategy with its eight focus areas.
In terms of the environment, we succeeded in taking the first measures from our climate pathway for the housing segment. For example, the conversion from high-pressure to low-pressure systems was started as a pilot project, and Coolstart fittings were incorporated as standard. In the commercial sector, we also put together an agile team to work on our climate pathway in order to develop and take measures in line with our climate strategy. We have further expanded our commitment to greater biodiversity with new projects in our portfolio.
In terms of social aspects, Volkswagen Immobilien (VWI) focused on expanding corporate benefits as an attractive employer. We want to continue to offer our employees flexible working-hour models and a healthy work-life balance, which includes a focus on promoting mental health as one of our top priorities. In the 2023 reporting year, we gave our employees access to the digital learning platform Degreed and launched various training courses and programs on the topic of mental health.
We continued to sharpen our governance profile in the 2023 reporting year, for example through comprehensive training on compliance and anti-corruption, business human rights and the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. We also introduced system-supported feedback tools and intensified our open and honest dialogue with our stakeholders. In addition, a separate sub-department combining compliance, integrity and information security was created in the first quarter of 2023 to strengthen the organization.
The outlook for the current year, 2024, is also promising: We want to further reduce our emissions and define climate paths in the commercial and habitation sector, solidify them through measures and track them. We are also focusing on the digitalization of our portfolio, with a pilot project for the use of SMART METER technologies slated for launch at our commercial properties. We intend to further expand our programs to promote employees’ physical and mental health in the workplace. What is more, we also want to create new opportunities to intensify the open dialogue among staff at all levels of the hierarchy.
Our efforts in the area of sustainability are part of the 2030 VWI corporate strategy, with which we want to continue to grow and consolidate our role within the Group as a sustainability-oriented company with proven real estate expertise. Our sustainability management system ensures that taking responsibility for the environment and society plays a central role with all measures and processes.
We are pleased to present our sustainability report for the 2023 reporting year and hope you enjoy reading it!
The Volkswagen Immobilien GmbH senior management team
Meno Requardt & Hardy Brennecke