Optimise and Innovate

Strategic priorities

The following elements are our key areas of environmental impact and how we seek to manage them:

	Climate change and energy efficiency Reduce emissions and improve climate resilience within our portfolio Invest in alternative energy supplies to reduce our emissions
	Biodiversity Minimise our impact on local bushland habitat, ecologicial communities and protected or significant species Design that promotes nature reserves and activates parklands
	Water management and quality Improve water consumption efficiency and sustainable sourcing Deliver projects that minimise water use and positively contribute to local water catchments
	Waste and materials Reduce, reuse and recycle our waste, minimising our contribution to landfill Specify the use of ecologically- and health-preferable materials

FY17 progress

	Electricity intensity reductions: Retail 35% and Office and Business Parks 51% since FY06
	Green Star – Communities: 6 Residential communities achieved 5 star or 6 star ratings
	Waste diversion from landfill: 96% of Residential and 84% of Retail waste diverted (from FY15-17)
	Biodiversity savings: Around 1,972 hectares of land reserved for protection in perpetuity
	Installed a 925kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system at Stockland Wetherill Park (NSW)
	New targets set for climate change, energy, biodiversity, water, waste and materials to FY20, including longer-term FY25 carbon intensity target

Resilient communities and assets

For the benefit of our stakeholders, and society more broadly, we are committed to creating climate-resilient assets and communities that operate with minimal disruption, as well as building strong communities that are equipped to adapt to climate change risks and opportunities.

We have a comprehensive approach to assessing and managing the physical risks of climate change for both our assets and our local communities, residents and customers. This approach includes the following key steps:

• Conduct a national mapping exercise of all assets in the portfolio (including those under development) to identify the level of vulnerability and exposure based on 1.5°C to 2°C warming scenarios, their geographic location and perceived exposure to climate vulnerability based on recent experiences.
• Undertake climate and community resilience assessments at assets prioritised through the national mapping exercise.
• Develop an action plan to implement the key recommendations outlined in the assessment process. Recommendations may include the implementation of operational responses, maintenance regimes, emergency response plans and community development programs that focus on improving the health and wellbeing of our communities. This action planning is integrated with annual sustainability and asset/business planning processes.

Our work in building resilience means that we are able to:

• Optimise asset performance by minimising increases in operating and maintenance costs,
• Make informed decisions regarding future investments,
• Reduce liability and insurance premiums by ensuring assets are prepared for climate change,
• Increase customer comfort levels within our assets and communities, and
• Help maintain the longevity of assets within our portfolio.

In FY17, we reassessed the climate resilience of our portfolio of North Queensland retail assets, and benchmarked them against their original assessment undertaken in FY15. We achieved our target to improve the resilience of our North Queensland retail assets, with the improvements resulting from implementation of climate resilience initiatives (see case study). We also assessed seven residential communities and 10 retirement living villages prioritised based on their climate risk exposure.

Over the past year, we formalised our participation in the University of NSW Microclimate and Urban Heat Island Mitigation Decision-Support Tool Project. The aim of the project is to provide governments and developers with a resource that incorporates existing and emerging evidence to inform policy and practices related to urban design for cooling streetscapes, precincts and cities, decreasing energy consumption, protecting health and vulnerable populations, and improving comfort conditions.

 

 

 

Targeting energy efficiency and emissions reduction

35% ↓ Retail portfolio reduction in electricity intensity since FY06

51% ↓ Office and Business Park portfolio reduction in electricity intensity since FY06

$78m+ costs saved

 

The increasing cost of energy, particularly electricity, poses a challenge for the property industry and for all Australians. Coupled with our commitment to reduce our carbon emissions, improving the energy efficiency of our assets and communities not only improves the cost of operations and living but also provides improved environmental outcomes.

As electricity is an increasing proportion of our assets’ operating expenditure, improvements in energy efficiency enable us to reduce cost and improve our operational efficiency. The increasing cost of power also means that renewable energy options such as solar have become cost-effective choices for our energy supply.

Our Commercial Property business accounts for the majority of Stockland’s electricity costs. We continue to trial new technologies as they emerge, and where proven successful we stage implementation through the portfolio. In FY17, we implemented a number of energy efficiency projects including:

• LED lighting upgrades at Stockland Shellharbour (NSW), Stockland Tooronga (Vic) and Stockland Rockhampton (Qld) equivalent to savings of approximately 800,000kWh annually
• Completion of variable speed drives (VSDs) at Stockland Rockhampton (Qld), which has the potential to result in 160,000kWh of savings annually
• Completion of our second largest solar system at Stockland Wetherill Park (NSW), which is on track to generate 1,200,000kWh annually and
• Completion of LED lighting upgrade at Stockland Point Cook (Vic) and Stockland Hervey Bay (Qld) and a large HVAC upgrade at Stockland Bundaberg (Qld).

Our approach to alternative energy is focused predominantly on solar PV in our retail commercial properties, though wind and tri-generation has also been explored across certain assets. Our installed capacity of 2.26 MW includes our newest installation at Stockland Wetherill Park (NSW) as well as installations at Stockland Shellharbour (NSW), Stockland Green Hills (NSW) and Stockland Nowra (NSW).

We actively assess the most appropriate locations to roll out solar across the portfolio and focus on alternative energy initiatives that meet our return-on-investment hurdle. Following the successful achievement of our FY17 renewable energy target, we will install a further 12.3 MW of solar PV projects in our Retail portfolio in operating centres and in developments from FY18-FY20.

We also have solar PV installations on a large proportion of our retirement village homes. Over the next 12 months, we will be looking closely at how solar can be adopted in the Residential business on a large scale through different network ownership and management models.

 

 

 

Sustainable assets and developments

Asset ratings and certifications are a key means of assuring and demonstrating the quality of our projects and assets. These ratings serve as independent validation that key sustainability aspects, including social and environmental factors, have been considered in our project and asset designs, developments and operations.

Assets that are highly rated and can demonstrate optimal performance are often more attractive to customers and investors. Not only do they guarantee a certain level of energy and water efficiency, and therefore cost savings over the long term, they also incorporate various design features that promote social inclusion and enhance health and wellbeing. Buildings with high environmental ratings often demonstrate higher return on investment over time.

We have a strong commitment to the use of product rating and certification tools to ensure the sustainability performance of our projects and assets. They include:

• Green Star – A range of tools administered by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) that rate the sustainable design, construction and operation of buildings and communities, using a scale from 1 to 6 Stars, with 1 being Minimum Practice and 6 being World Leadership.
• NABERS – The National Australian Built Environment Rating System uses measured and verified performance information to assess energy efficiency, water usage and other factors of a building or tenancy and its impact on the environment. This performance is converted into a rating scale of 1 to 6 stars, with 6 being market-leading performance.
• Livable Housing Australia – Three-tiered performance certification for liveable housing design: Silver, Gold and Platinum.

Green Star is now a standard Stockland requirement on all shopping centre and retirement living developments, with a minimum of 4 Star Green Star – Design & As Built certification required. We have the largest number of Green Star rated retail properties in Australia, as verified by the GBCA, with 23 assets awarded one or more rating. We have also received the first Green Star rating for a retirement living asset.

We continue to extend our Green Star certifications across our new Retail and Retirement Living projects. In our Retail portfolio we achieved a 4 Star Green Star – Design rating for Stockland Harrisdale (WA); our first ever 5 Star Green Star – As Built rating for retail at Stockland Wetherill Park (NSW).

For our Logistics and Business Parks portfolio, we have committed to integrate sustainability standards into our design brief so that we maintain consistency in the design of logistics buildings that deliver good environmental outcomes.

In our Residential business we use the Green Star Communities tool (see our case study).

 

 

We completed NABERS Energy ratings for the calendar year 2016 for 23 out of 24 eligible assets in our Retail portfolio and for 16 out of 19 assets in our Office and Business Parks’ portfolio. Based on the ratings that have been undertaken, the Retail portfolio average for NABERS Energy is 3.98 stars (4.19 stars in FY16) and 3.20 stars for NABERS Water (2.85 stars in FY16). The Office and Business Parks portfolio NABERS Energy rating is 4.74 stars and the NABERS Water rating is 3.98 stars.

Portfolio sustainability ratings

3.98 NABERS Energy Retail portfolio average*	4.74 NABERS Energy Office & Business Parks portfolio average*	22 Green Star Performance rated Retail assets
3.20 NABERS Water Retail portfolio average*	3.98 NABERS Water Office & Business Parks portfolio average*	24 Green Star Design, Community & As Built rated assets

* Includes assets eligible for a rating. 

We remain committed to delivering more accessible housing options for Australians. In FY17, we achieved the following Livable Housing Australia (LHA) certifications:

• LHA Silver standard design for Willowdale Community Place, our sustainability and community hub at the Willowdale (NSW) residential community,
• LHA Silver design ratings for two homes in the Aura (Qld) display village, and
• LHA Silver standard at Birtinya Retirement Village (Qld), our first greenfield vertical village.

We updated and relaunched our Retirement Living design guidelines to reflect LHA principles, and remain committed to 100% Silver LHA in new greenfield retirement villages. We are working to deliver LHA more efficiently with our builder partners. We will continue to improve processes to enable better delivery and better awareness within the market.

In addition to rating our assets we have minimum standards for our assets. These include targets for water quality and waste management.

For the FY15-FY17 target cycle, our Commercial Property combined landfill diversion rate on four major retail construction projects was 84%, against our target of 80%. In our Residential and Retirement Living businesses we achieved a diversion of waste from landfill rate of 97%. At our new Newport community (Qld), we worked with our principal contractor to develop a refined spoil management strategy that enabled the project to reuse 1.5 million cubic metres of spoil on site.

 

 

Biodiversity management - a net positive outcome

The impacts of our business on biodiversity are, for the most part, unique to our greenfield residential developments and in particular our masterplanned communities. These impacts occur both during construction (e.g. clearing, sediment runoff, changed hydrological regimes) and as a result of urbanisation (e.g. poaching species, introduction of invasive species, isolation of habitat).

Our developments can leave biodiversity in better shape through conservation, investment, secure ownership, and ongoing management, especially when compared with the existing state of many pre-development sites. These sites are often degraded habitat, facing continued impacts from threatening processes. They are also usually in private ownership with no certainty over conservation outcomes. When we develop the site, in some cases we will retain the majority of biodiversity, and in some cases land will be cleared. Where this is the case, conservation in perpetuity of remaining biodiversity or biodiversity off-site provides certainty for ecological communities and species.

In FY15 we set a target of delivering a positive biodiversity outcome across all of our new projects between FY15 to FY17, as measured by the biodiversity calculator. A total of 11 new projects were delivered over this period, and we met our target to deliver a net positive outcome.

 

Waste management

The materials and equipment used within our assets have a significant bearing on the capital cost of our projects and on the operating cost and efficiency of the assets we retain and manage as owners.

Our FY17 diversion from landfill rate for Residential and Retirement Living development was 97 per cent, which exceeded our target rate of 60 per cent due to a number of large residential projects not needing to export large amounts of debris from site.

We continued to engage with our tenants, retailers and customers to further improve the levels of recycling at our retail sites. Retail waste diverted from landfill was 45 per cent, exceeding our waste diversion target of 36 per cent. In our Office and Business Parks portfolio, waste diversion from landfill was 43 per cent; just short of the 45 per cent diversion target.

We also undertook a Life Cycle Assessment on our Stockland Green Hills (NSW) redevelopment. Results from the analysis showed a cumulative 142 per cent reduction in environmental impact was achievable by the proposed building design for Stockland Green Hills compared to the standard reference building.

 

 

Our targets

To reduce our net environmental impact, we aimed to achieve:

	10% reduction in the emissions intensity of our Office and Retail portfolios by FY17 (based on FY14 baseline). Achieved
	40% reduction in energy usage per residential lot and retirement home incorporated into the design of newly developed projects (compared to regional averages). Partially achieved
	Create a net positive impact on biodiversity across our new developments by FY17. Achieved
	40% reduction in potable water consumption per residential lot and 20% reduction per retirement home incorporated into the design of newly developed projects. Partially achieved