Community investment
We invested £718,000 in good causes through cash contributions, employee time and gifts-in-kind.
Head of Planning and Environment at British Land, Adrian Penfold, comments: “Much of our support is provided as part of a long-term relationship that enables real progress to be made. We invest in the future through education, the arts and sport, with particular emphasis on helping young people.”
We made financial contributions to a range of good causes. These included the British Land Chess Challenge, with 67,000 children from over 2,000 schools taking part in the tournament. We also sponsored Capital Kids Cricket, with nearly 1,300 children from 128 schools participating in the British Land Kids Cricket League.
24% of our Head Office employees participated in volunteering initiatives in work time. 92% of our volunteers surveyed reported that they felt more positive about the company following their team challenge volunteer days. 100% found our volunteering days to be effective team building exercises.
We also provided local community groups with use of space in our office estates, shopping centres and retail parks, as well as hosting a range of events. These made our properties more vibrant and exciting places for our occupiers and local people.
This year, we joined the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) for community investment to enable comparison against our peers and to inform the development of our community programme. In line with LBG guidance we now report sports sponsorship separately. We invested nearly £300,000 in sports sponsorship, which included supporting SnowsportGB and Rotherham United.
