Property developer St Modwen has announced plans to become net zero carbon by 2040.
The Birmingham-headquartered listed company also wants to be operationally net zero by 2025. Chief finance and operations officer Rob Hudson said: “The world is changing, and there is a new business climate where purpose and profit are inextricably linked.
“Given our active role in the built environment, we take our wider responsibilities seriously and understand how important it is to put into practice strategies that place people and the planet at the heart of how we do business.
“We know that the environment, good working practices and the impact businesses have on society is front of mind amongst the full spectrum of our stakeholders.
“This includes our colleagues, the partners we work with, the communities we serve and investors who are placing increasing emphasis on ESG in the global capital markets.
“We’ve identified much of what we need to do to meet our operationally net zero carbon 2025 ambition, including looking at every aspect of our business operations, from travel to energy sources.
“We are also focussing on the way we design, build and operate and deconstruct our buildings, as well as sourcing materials and products that will help us reach this target.”
St Modwen recently announced that it would double the amount of warehouse space its builds this year from 0.9 million sq ft in 2019 to 1.7 million sq ft in 2020.
Of the 1.7 million sq ft expected to come forward, some 1.5 million sq ft is already committed. The company stated it has grown its total future pipeline to c. 19 million sq ft, 45 per cent of which already has planning.
Mark Allan, chief executive of St. Modwen, said: “Our Industrial & Logistics business had a positive year in 2019, as we continued to reinvest the proceeds from our non-core disposals into our substantial development pipeline in this growth sector. As such, industrial and logistics assets now make up 44 per cent of our portfolio, up from 19 per cent when we launched our new strategy in mid-2017. We expect this to grow further in the coming years, as we accelerate the delivery of our pipeline.
The business has also set out its ambition to be ready to achieve a net biodiversity gain of at least 10 per cent associated with all development activity.
