Every action matters
As a responsible business our vision is to realise a more sustainable world for all.
Our Green Dimension helps us achieve this by embedding sustainability into everything we do. Across every service and team, both as individuals and as a company, every action matters.
We know people prioritise different issues, so supporting and celebrating every dimension is fundamental for success. We commit to creating spaces for our environment, culture and communities to thrive.
Our strategy
Culture
Ambition: Create an inclusive, innovative and engaging culture where our employees can realize their full potential.
Everything we do at CBRE is underpinned by our values of respect, integrity, service and excellence (RISE); they are the cornerstones of our value proposition.
We are focused on talent attraction, professional development, and diversity and inclusion; creating a healthy culture where all employees feel engaged and excited to come to work for us every day.
Building diverse, high-performing teams is a key commitment and underpinning it is the desire to include different viewpoints in our mindset, behaviour and operations. We know that creating an environment where each and every individual is valued for who they are, recognized for their contributions and given the chance to grow, opens our business up to new perspectives and opportunities.
In addition, we are working towards the WELL Building Standard certification at our head office from which good practice will be rolled out across the rest of the CBRE portfolio.
KPIs
- Employment
- Training
- Staff satisfaction
- Diversity and inclusion
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Wellbeing
- Gender ratio
- Caring responsibilities
Material Issues: Diversity and inclusion, Employee attraction, Employee well-being
Sustainable Development Goals
Communities
Ambition: To make a positive difference to the communities and cities of which we are a part, so they are safe, resilient and sustainable.
We are deeply committed to supporting and adding value to the communities in which we live and work.
We support a range of charitable interests across the UK; from local initiatives in the most deprived areas across our office locations, to nationwide, Europe-wide and global programmes. These programmes and partnerships are designed to meet and respond to a range of worthy causes that have been consciously decided upon and are regularly reviewed.
In February 2018, Action for Children became the UK’s charity partner, after a nationwide vote. Action for Children is an inspirational charity that helps thousands of disadvantaged children across the country. Over the course of our three-year partnership, we have worked with Action for Children to help build safe and stable homes for more than 700 children and their foster families in the care system.
In addition to our charity partner, we also work with global children's charity, Plan International, delivering life-changing projects for girls and boys in Sierra Leone and Kenya. Partnering since 2014, we have raised €1.6 million to support the ‘Safer Cities for Girls’ project reaching 5,091 young people and 10,134 community members addressing gender-based violence, street harassment and harmful stereotypes.
KPIs
- Charity, partnership and giving
- Volunteering
- Community and social value
Sustainable Development Goals
Environment
Ambition: To be a net zero carbon business by 2030 and an exemplar to our employees, suppliers and clients.
At CBRE, we are committed to being a better steward of the environment. We embed best practice across our business and, we’re constantly striving to learn, to improve and to lead.
That’s because we recognise that both as a business, and through our relationships with our clients and peers, we have an enormous opportunity to influence the behaviour of the property sector, to adapt our built environment and to make a positive difference.
At the top of our priorities is our target of being a net zero carbon business by 2030. It shapes our actions across the organisation and sits at the core of our work.
With board-level leadership and accountability, coupled with our employee engagement programmes, our whole organisation is working towards quickly improving our environmental performance. Alongside targeting energy, water, waste, resource efficiency and climate resilience, we are also deep-diving into the impacts of our business and supply chain.
KPIs
- Net zero
- Waste
- Water
- Green Building Certification
- Resource use
- Employee engagement
- Environmental management
- Climate resilience
- Sustainability services
Material Issues: Environmental compliance, Greenhouse gas emissions, Climate change resilience, Energy, Water, Waste, Sustainability services
Sustainable Development Goals
Governance
Every aspect of our organisation is touched by our ESG strategy. 
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Ultimate accountability and leadership sits with the ESG Committee, which feeds into EXCOM. The ESG pillar workstream leads are responsible for delivering on KPIs and they report into an ESG Working Group. The working group has a broad membership that includes representatives from sister organisations Telford Homes and CBRE Global Investors.
Our company-wide ‘All Greens’ employee group represents the interests of all staff and has representatives sitting on both the ESG Working Group and ESG Committee.
Material Issues: Anti-corruption, Human rights
Sustainable Development Goals
Transparency on our targets and progress
Communities
Communities
Environment
Environment
Environment
Environment
We’re in this together
Clients
Suppliers
Our supply chain helps to shape who we are as business. There is no better example of this than the critical role our supply chain partners play in all elements of our ESG strategy, ensuring that we meet both our social and environmental goals. In 2017 we became the first Real Estate Advisor to be accredited with the National Equality Standard; this would not have been possible without the efforts of our suppliers. In 2020 we became the first Real Estate Advisor to become members of the environmental disclosure program CDP; again the engagement of our suppliers is fundamental to our collective success here.
We develop these relationships throughout the procurement lifecycle to ensure that we remained aligned with our suppliers on our goals. In the marketplace we engage openly and inclusively, we make our goals and aspirations clear and actively engage either 1-2-1 or via industry forums which enable suppliers to understand us in greater depth. Our sourcing process will clearly set out our expectations and targets. Our selection processes will encourage innovation so that we stimulate our supply chain with the solutions for not just today’s need but also to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s world. In the working relationships we develop with our suppliers we will underpin our goals with data, baselining performance and driving progress through consistent and progressive meetings.
We are inextricably linked with our supply chain and cannot achieve anything on our own. Every action matters.
Workforce
Everybody’s Property - Connecting with our employees
Our ESG strategy is an integral and inclusive part of everyday life at CBRE. Individual actions are key to ensuring we achieve our ambitions, together.
This is why, in 2020, we created our company-wide and employee-run sustainability network – The All Greens – which is a key part of our wider ESG governance and open to all UK employees. There is nobody better placed to tell us what happens on a day-to-day basis, and with their help we will take corrective action and ensure our policies and initiatives are as effective as possible.
Our employee group runs monthly events, challenges and competitions to raise awareness about key ESG issues in the sector and beyond, with executive backing to ensure activities are fed into the board’s strategy. Employees can choose their level of interaction:
Engaged (‘I want to know’) – employees are kept up to date with all initiatives, invited to events and challenges, and are kept informed of the key ESG issues.
Involved (‘I want to do’) – employees who want to be more involved in ESG can help to lead sustainable change by running and communicating our events, challenges and research activities.
We try to make being a part of ESG change as rewarding as possible, running cooperative competitions and challenges to encourage and reward collective action. Our mission is to allow our people to be as involved as they want in the areas they care most about.
SEE MORE ON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION AT CBRE
Thinking about a better world
Sustainability – A terminology minefield
The bounce back: What price sustainability?
It’s Not You, It’s MEES
Can Smart Cities reverse the impact of climate change?
Corporate policies and statements
Diversity and Inclusion
Human Rights
Wellbeing Guidelines
Whistleblowing
CBRE Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
UK Complaints procedure
Gender Paygap Report
Anti-corruption
Health and Safety
Covid-19 Risk Assessment
Supplier code of conduct (procurement)
Standards of Business Conduct
Annual CR report and archive
Get in touch
click here to contact the team on our journey to net zero carbon
click here to find out how we can help your sustainability journey