The property industry shapes the places in which Australians live and work and home to Australia’s largest workforce and an elaborate supply chain.
Given the scale of its impact, socially, economically and environmentally, the property industry is in a unique position to improve people’s lives.
For this reason, the Property Council’s National Social Sustainability Roundtable spearheaded the establishment of a Collective Social Impact Framework (CSIF) last year as a way to assess and quantify these efforts across the sector.
The pilot received completed responses for nine assets that reached technical- or staged-completion in FY23. The combined market value of the assets submitted to the Framework was $4.4 billion.
The assets were spread across six asset types that include residential, commercial, industrial, retail, education, and mixed use. Feedback indicated that the existing list of measures had greater relevance to certain asset classes with some metrics specifically targeted to residential developments.
The majority of assets submitted to the framework were based in Victoria, with others also located in New South Wales and Queensland. Other states were not represented in the piloting phase.
Just under 80 per cent of the assets reported included investments in providing access to local active lifestyle infrastructure and were located within 400m of it, they also designed features to maxisimise safety of occupants and attempted to assess modern slavery risks in operations and supply chains with most using the Property Council’s Modern Slavery Supplier Platform.
Fifty-five per cent included investments in mental health and wellbeing infrastructure for local communities while 44 per cent included a local level climate risk assessment and mitigation plan.
Deputy Chair of the Property Council’s National Social Sustainability Roundtable and ESG and Innovation Manager at Brookfield Properties Michael Karaiskos said reporting against the CSIF in its pilot phase helped the group consolidate its various social initiatives and consider how to better embed them while collecting meaningful data.
“I was delighted to see the effect of releasing aggregated and de-identified data,” he said.
“Without public scoring (e.g., a star rating), this reduced competition and facilitates open and collaborative discussions that I believe will promote action and rapid implementation of social initiatives across the industry.
“CSIF being a standardised framework will assist us in identifying our strengths and areas that might require improvement. The presence of both base and stretch targets in the framework will help us set targets and strive to improve our social initiatives in a way that meets or exceeds industry expectations.”
Chair of the roundtable and Head of Responsible Sourcing at Lendlease Ro Coroneos said the collective results of the pilot identified areas where development projects could devote further focus and investment.
“The CSIF can act as a yardstick for continuous improvement in designing and delivering social sustainability initiatives within an organisation or for individual development projects,” she said.
“It aims to ensure the ‘S’ in ESG exists on equal footing with ‘Environmental and ‘Governance’ elements. The framework provides a pathway for change on a project’s social sustainability initiatives.
“Benchmarking supports how the social sustainability initiatives deliver positive social /economic change on a development, or collectively, against other projects participating in the CSIF platform. It can also inform development and design briefs to ensure considered, good practice social sustainability outcomes.
“It is worth giving the framework a try at least as a test measure against the social sustainability dimensions of a project, to see where gaps and opportunities may need to be addressed.
“It will also provide the foundations for delivering optimal social benefits for your project design intent, giving you the evidence base to explain to key stakeholders including as your clients, senior management and community stakeholders.”