Trees, Bees & Flowers. Welcome to our second ‘Impact’ blog, where we share our views and provide updates on sustainability at Sirius and in the wider commercial real estate industry, this time focussing on our approach to the important topic of biodiversity. 

As members of the real estate sector we recognise the significant impact our industry has on the environment, with global real estate estimated to represent 37% of energy consumption, 40% of CO2 emissions and 40% of waste produced in developed countries. At the same time, we also equally recognise our responsibility and capacity to protect and enhance biodiversity in the areas associated with each of our structures and sites.

As owners and managers of 70 properties across Germany which includes large green spaces, hedgerows and trees, we have an important role to play in fostering biodiversity through active initiatives. This is becoming part of our core business model of renovating existing buildings rather than building on new land.

The potential benefits of this are numerous: from a societal standpoint it can bring improvements to quality of life and mental health, ecologically it provides better habitats for flora and fauna, and for Sirius as a business makes our sites more attractive to prospective customers and better places from which to work and operate.

In this blog, you’ll find out about three ways in which we are working to improve biodiversity.

Enhancing our green spaces

It may surprise some of you to know that we have over 500,000 square metres of green space across our portfolio, spread over our 70 owned and managed spaces across Germany. As such we’re able to cultivate a large amount of green space as we primarily focus on assets found outside city centres on existing brownfield sites.

There are numerous benefits of protecting and enhancing this green space. It helps create better and healthier habitats for wildlife in and around our sites, which supports local natural ecosystems and gives plants room to grow, while for our tenants and employees there is also a clear benefit in terms of wellbeing, with the link between green space and good health and wellbeing clearly established.

We don’t just leave our green spaces as they are, however, we proactively work to improve them and treat them in an environmentally friendly manner. Parts of our green space are being transformed into wildflower areas to support local flora and fauna, and grass is mowed only once per year after blooming – saving energy and resources, reducing pollution and noise disturbance and promoting healthy ecosystems at all of our sites.

There’s more to come, too. In the coming weeks we’ll be establishing ‘bug hotels’ on at least 50% of our sites, providing ideal habitats for a range of biodiversity-boosting insects and further enriching the same ecosystems in which we operate.

Protecting and planting trees

We also have over 9,000 trees on our sites, and we’re aiming to at least double this number over the next 12 months. These trees contribute a great deal to biodiversity, help to mitigate against air pollution and bring similar benefits to wellbeing as our green spaces. Because we only ever acquire existing sites and buildings, many of these trees are very well established.

We’re taking this stewardship of trees further through a partnership with Tree Nation, a worldwide partnership co-ordinating global action to help reforest the world. Through this we’re growing the Sirius forest at a range of sites across the world including India, Africa and South America by planting a new tree every time we want to mark a wide variety of occasions – for each new tenant contract and meeting room booking, for each response to our tenant survey and also to mark key dates for our employees such as birthdays and anniversaries.

Further afield, we contribute to a project in Papua New Guinea that helps local people steward 600,000 hectares of pristine rainforest that acts as a vital ecosystem and CO2 sink – for this, we contribute each time we print paper.

Supporting our bees

I’m delighted that we’ve recently established bee hives at Sirius, which are home to around 500,000 bees and looked after by beekeepers local to Sirius hubs – directly enhancing the ecosystems in which we operate! This is in partnership with Hektar Nektar, an initiative in Germany that aims to increase the bee population by 10% over the next decade. Bees are vital to cultivating a healthy ecosystem through their role as pollinators, so we’re really pleased to have rolled out the #BeeSirius initiative, another impactful way for us to play our part in fostering biodiversity and protecting the ecosystem in which we work.

We’ll ‘bee‘ sure to keep you updated on them in the coming weeks and months.