The challenge: catalysing sustainability collaboration across Hammerson’s property portfolio

Hammerson plc, one of the UK’s leading retail property development and investment companies, wants to collaborate more with its tenants on creating sustainable retail centres.

Hammerson aims to be Net Positive by 2030 in four areas with the greatest material impacts: carbon, resource use, water and socio-economic impacts. As the scope of this target includes the tenanted areas of its portfolio, Hammerson recognises the need to collaborate with businesses that lease property across its estate.

Understanding that there are barriers to this, it approached Bioregional to help design and facilitate a workshop exploring the relationship between landlords and retailers - gaining insight and developing ideas for encouraging collaborative action.

The workshop informed its Reshaping Retail report, launched in November 2019.

How we helped: creating conversation for collaboration

Using our sustainable retail experience, we helped plan and facilitate a half-day workshop with an engaging agenda to open up this initial conversation. We started the day with an inspiring keynote speech and then split into four discussion tables.

With 12 major retailers represented, as well as a team from Hammerson, it was the perfect space to explore major sustainability opportunities and challenges for the sector – and what practical solutions could look like.

It also helped to identify trends emerging within the retail sector and how they impact on retail stores, such as changes in consumers’ behaviour and awareness of sustainability and disruptive business models.

The outcome: new relationships and proposed solutions for the future

The companies present said how valuable it was to be able to talk openly with one another about the common sustainability challenges they face in the sector.

We created a post-event report that shared proposed solutions to the challenges retailers face, further informed by future sector trends.

We recommended steps to take within the next 12 months, 1-3 years and 5 years for Hammerson, retailers and other retail landlords. We also identified 5 areas of key interest or potential for innovation for Hammerson to explore in more depth with retailers following the initial workshop.