The Involvement of Real Estate Companies in Sustainable Development—An Analysis from the SDGs Reporting Perspective

Ion Anghel,Marilena Mironiuc,Elena Ionașcu,Maria Carmen Huian

doi:10.3390/su12030798

Abstract

As transparency has become the new paradigm of economic activities, we set out to analyse the extent to which the EU real estate companies legitimise their role in society through the sustainable development goals (SDGs) while meeting stakeholders’ information needs. Applying the content analysis, the sustainability reports and the annual reports of the entities from the real estate sector, from 2016 to 2018, were studied in order to highlight the priority SDGs of the field and the extent to which they are integrated in their business models. In addition, we evaluated, based on a quality score, the depth with which the entities report their sustainability commitments. The results of the study show that although more and more real estate entities are expressing their interest for sustainable development, there is still a large gap between the assumed intentions and the real actions undertaken by the companies. Most of them do not have the strategy, culture and tools needed to turn sustainability commitments into concrete actions. According to the average quality score (2.99 out of 5), the entities present their sustainability aspirations mostly qualitatively and report few quantitative key performance indicators (KPIs) to reveal the degree of achievement of the priority SDGs, such as: SDG 11—Sustainable cities and communities, SDG 13—Climate action and SDG 8—Decent work and economic growth.

Highlights

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda form a coherent and integrated framework for addressing the most urgent global sustainability issues, the solution of which depends on the joint efforts of all individuals, organisations and governments
The lack of mention of the SDGs in the discourse of the executive directors could be a signal of the weak integration of the goals in the overall strategy of the entity [6], a fact confirmed by the very low rate (13%) of the reports in which the entities describe their role in their business model
The SDGs are mentioned mainly in the sections dedicated to the sustainability agenda (79%), whose presentation is not correlated with the rest of the content of the report (54% of cases)

Summary

Introduction

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda form a coherent and integrated framework for addressing the most urgent global sustainability issues, the solution of which depends on the joint efforts of all individuals, organisations and governments. The dynamic problems of sustainable development determine the new perspectives of corporate reporting, increasingly emphasising the role of the business environment in designing and implementing the sustainability objectives [1]. In this respect, entities are encouraged to align their values with those of the community in which they operate [2], and because transparency has become the new paradigm of economic activities [1,3], companies must legitimise their role in society through concrete actions while meeting the information needs of stakeholders [4].

Sustainable Reporting in the Real Estate Field

Methodological Approach to Content Analysis

Content Analysis Process and Coding System

Results of Stage 1

Results of Stage 2

Summary and Concluding Discussion

Gender equality: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

10. Reduced inequalities: reduce inequality within and among countries

13. Climate action: take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts