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Back to the Environmental Approach Page
Climate Change
What is the challenge?
The Earth’s climate relies upon a delicate balance of natural greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere to trap some of the sun’s heat.
The accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of human activities (such as the burning of fossil fuels for energy generation) is increasingly believed to be responsible for exacerbating climate change, resulting in global warming, water shortages and the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
The increasing of CO2 in atmosphere is a result of emissions from several human activities, namely the burning of fossil fuels for energy generation.
Buildings, namely shopping centres require energy in their construction, operation, refurbishment and eventual demolition. They are fuel dependent to transport the people that travel to and from them. They can cause the release of other greenhouse gases, including HFC’s (hydrofluorocarbon) from air conditioning systems and indirectly, methane (CH4) from the waste treatment in landfills.
What is Sonae Sierra doing about it?
DEVELOPMENT
Energy use
Energy efficient designs, including energy performance targets and innovative engineering solutions, are covered within our Environmental Standards for Retail Developments (ESRD). These require Development Managers to explore the possibility to use renewable and low carbon technologies during design, including passive solar design, natural ventilation and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) / district heating, etc.
Within the scope of ESRD, we specify energy efficient boilers and air conditioning units, and fit out equipment such as lighting and appliances. Where possible, we always procure materials with low embodied energy.
We are committed to designing buildings that will achieve high energy efficiency ratings under the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive [2002/91/EC].
To go further with our ambitions in relation to energy efficiency in buildings, we have recently joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Energy Efficiency in Buildings Project (EEB). The EEB is a three year project that will map out the necessary changes to achieve a world in which buildings consume zero net energy.
It will be concluded in 2009 with a call to action to all those involved in buildings and energy use.
Read the 2007 WBCSD 'Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Business Realities and Opportunities' Report, and click here to access more information.
Air emissions
Air pollution punctual sources, from heating and cooling plant is avoided through ensuring that design specifications incorporate pollution control measures and also that air conditioning systems do not possess greenhouse gases in their composition.
Transport
The ESRD standards include a series of requirements to maximise the accessibility of our new developments to a variety of transport modes. “Transport impact studies” are undertaken at the early concept design stage, and measures are implemented to develop an “Integrated travel plan”, initiate local transport partnerships and encourage walking, cycling and the use of Public Transport by both visitors and tenants alike. We also seek to encourage efficient vehicle use through traffic calming measures, priority lanes, dedicated parking bays for car sharing passengers, and refuelling stations and points for alternative fuelled vehicles.
MANAGEMENT
Energy use
Sonae Sierra has been measuring, monitoring and targeting energy usage in its shopping centres since 2002. The data collection and monitoring function is achieved through a centralised online working database which allows centre management teams to input environmental performance data of individual centres, and to generate reports on energy performance including comparisons across the Sonae Sierra’s portfolio. This information is used to improve continually the Building Management Systems (BMS) to ensure tight and efficient control of energy usage, and also to improve staff and tenant awareness of energy efficiency. Alongside our efforts to manage our shopping centres in a way that is as energy efficient as possible, we are also investigating opportunities for the use of on-site renewable energy generation and for the procurement of green electricity through the grid.
We are committed to reducing our Carbon Footprint in all our activities and to measuring and monitoring our emissions. We apply the Greenhouse Gas Protocol guidelines as reference measurement. We report against scopes 1 and 2, and recently, we have begun to also monitor the emissions produced under scope 3. Scope 3 refers to emissions related with our activities but which result from sources that neither belong to nor are controlled by Sonae Sierra. These include staff commuting journeys, air travel, visitors’ journeys to and from shopping centres and the treatment of wastewater generated by our company activities. We have set ourselves the long term goal to achieve a 10% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by square metre of GLA by 2020 compared to 2005 level (scopes 1, 2 and business air travel of scope 3).
Air emissions
Direct air emissions, such as: emissions from fuel combustion on company vehicles; HFCs emissions leakage from cooling and refrigeration systems; emissions from cogeneration systems and heat production in boilers, are also measured according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. These are reported against under scope 1 emissions, which are monitored in order to reduce Sierra’s direct GHG emissions.
Transport
Sonae Sierra is aware that tenant and visitor journeys to and from its shopping and leisure centres have a number of associated environmental impacts, dependent upon the mode of transport used. We are keen to maximise the accessibility of our centres to those using different transport modes. Most of our centres have dedicated space inside for the provision and display of travel information, including public transport timetables. Cycle storage facilities for tenants and visitors are maintained. Moreover, we recently developed and implemented our first Green Travel Plan project at Centro Colombo in Portugal, and we plan to roll out this project to other centres in future. This Plan is a study that analyses the transport infrastructure and implements measures to encourage and improve the accessibility of the shopping centre by public transport, bicycle and on foot.
With the purpose of measure and manage this indirect impact from our activities – Transport, we incorporate questions in regular visitor surveys enquiring about the mode of transport used by our visitors. Through these indirect measurements it is possible to report against scope 3 emissions according with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
It is our purpose to measure, monitor and report our own indirect greenhouse gas emissions from sources that are not controlled by the company but are related with its operations, such as transport to and from Sierra shopping centres.
Sonae Sierra KPI
Sonae Sierra has chosen CO2 emissions (tCO2e) and other complementary indicators related to energy efficiency (kWh/m2) and transport modes to measure our performance under Climate Change issue.
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