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Communities (including visitors)
What are the challenges?
The development of shopping centres can receive a mixed reception from communities; on the one hand, they offer new opportunities of employment, can boost local economies and provide new services and facilities. On the other, they may be perceived as a threat by local retailers or as a nuisance by neighbouring residents as they increase the circulation of traffic and noise. It is of utmost importance for our shopping centres to gain the support and favour of local communities to enable the company to enjoy the benefits of an excellent reputation and to maximise the number of visitors to the centre.
What is Sonae Sierra doing about them?
At Sonae Sierra, we have programmes in place for assessing the impacts of our operations on local communities both prior to development, during the development process and whilst we are operating in the community.
We take into consideration aspects such as local heritage during project design, we monitor job creation within the community prior to and following the inauguration of new shopping centres and we also try to mitigate the impact of increased competition on local retailers by offering them the opportunity to open stores in our centres.
As shopping centre managers, the social issues which affect the communities where we operate are naturally concerns of ours also. In 2007 we launched our first Community Panel project, at Dos Mares, Spain, with the aim of establishing a platform for engagement with members of the local community.
We regularly organise events for the community, often with cultural or environmental themes and sometimes aimed at particular groups such as children or the elderly. During 2007 we welcomed 291 school visits to centres across our portfolio.
We engage with charitable organisations by organizing collections in our centres and also through local and corporate charitable donations. At a corporate level, we have established a system to facilitate staff community volunteering and have allocated volunteer time to all our employees. In 2007 our staff spent a total of 670 hours working with charitable organisations.
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