Welcome to our latest ‘Impact’ blog, where we share our views and provide updates on sustainability at Sirius and in the wider commercial real estate industry. We’ve focussed on environmental issues so far, so with Pride month having recently come to a close for this year, this time I want to address another pillar of a sustainable business: diversity and inclusion.

Creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for everyone to thrive at Sirius isn’t just the right thing to do, there’s also a growing body of research showing that businesses that embrace diversity perform better and are more profitable, thanks in part to the capacity for a team with a wider range of backgrounds to be more innovative and creative.

This is something that CEO Andrew Coombs has touched on in his most recent blog post looking at how the pandemic and its consequences will change the real estate industry. This is an industry that’s traditionally not been the quickest to embrace diversity and inclusion so we’re committed to doing our part to improve inclusion within our own business and to speak up on these issues. 

In this blog, I’ll touch upon a few ways we’re working to create an inclusive environment at Sirius, and the wider moral imperative of creating welcoming environments for all.

Allyship with the LGBT+ community

Those of you who follow our Twitter and LinkedIn social media channels may have already seen that we’ve recently partnered with LGBT Great, a global corporate membership organisation committed to developing LGBT+ diversity and inclusion through insights, visibility and outreach initiatives. We’re really proud to be stepping up our support for our LGBT+ employees and displaying ongoing allyship with the LGBT+ community, and we’ll be building on this partnership with continued training and leadership across the business on diversity and inclusion issues.

On a personal note, I was really touched to have been included in LGBT Great’s 2021 Global Top 100 Executive Allies, an annual list of corporate leaders who display support for others at their firm and in the wider industry.

Diversity and inclusion is a topic I feel personally passionate about including being a good ally to the LGBT+ community, so it was great to have been joined by Asset Management Director Craig Hoskins in being recognised by LGBT Great.

Along with Craig and Head of Asset Management (Transactions) David Schuster, who is Sirius’ member leader for LGBT Great and works on the Sirius Diversity Working Group helping guide our focus on integrating diversity and inclusion into all our practices, we’ll remain committed allies as the necessary progress in terms of the rights and inclusion of LGBT+ people is made, both in the real estate industry and in wider society.

Diversity and inclusion at all levels of the business

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion doesn’t just stop with Craig, David and I or just focus on LGBT+ issues, however – it’s embedded right the way through the business. From a leadership perspective, Craig Hoskins and I are also Diversity Ambassadors at Sirius alongside our day-to-day roles, helping to shape the approach of the business to diversity and inclusion alongside the Sustainability and Ethics Committee. Beyond this, as mentioned above we also have a Diversity Working Group, that helps guide our day to day implementation of diversity and inclusion considerations.

As a business, Sirius has been a signatory to the German Charter of Diversity since 2014, affirming our commitment eliminating discrimination of all kinds. Within this charter are contained seven dimensions of diversity covering all aspects of an individual’s background and identity, and we’ve placed these seven dimensions at the heart of our strategy for diversity and inclusion to ensure our approach is comprehensive. We also overhauled our Diversity & Inclusion policy earlier this year to ensure our policies are aligned with the latest best practices. Within this we reaffirm our zero tolerance approach to any form of prejudice or discrimination.  

Across the company, our teams mark a number of occasions in the calendar such as the Day of Diversity in Germany and most recently Pride Month, and we run a weekly Diversity Dienstag series on Thursdays highlighting various issues around a range of diversity and inclusion topics.

Embracing a diverse workforce

Our commitment to diversity is reflected in the team we have at Sirius. We have staff from 28 different nationalities working in the team, with generations from age 19 to 63 represented, and our gender balance is even with 53% women and 47% men. Women occupy a third of leadership roles at Sirius, and we’re continuing to work to raise this figure. We’ve also made sure to integrate diversity and inclusion considerations into our physical sites, having installed multi-faith prayer rooms at our Berlin headquarters, and gender neutral toilets across a number of our offices and sites.  

Ultimately, as mentioned earlier we believe embracing this diversity contributes to the success of our business as we have such a wide range of people bringing their perspectives, considerations and backgrounds to work every day. Moreover, as a business with an exceptionally diverse range of tenants, spaces and sites across the breadth of Germany, it’s important that we can bring as broad a set of perspectives to our work as possible so we can be best placed help our tenants thrive.

There have been great strides made in recent years in the real estate industry, in Germany and further afield in terms of diversity and inclusion and the legal rights of LGBT+ people, but progress isn’t evenly shared everywhere and there’s still so much to be done. We at Sirius are committed to doing our part for a more positive future.