Retail is entering a renaissance period, with rising investor confidence leading to increased capital flows into the sector. Whether that’s experience-based retail like hospitality, a resurgence of our cities’ Main Streets and High Streets, or simple non-discretionary staples, there are opportunities to drive sustainable outcomes across all forms of retail with far lower carbon demands.
That’s where Cushman & Wakefield’s Sustainability Services comes in.
What is Sustainability Services?
We’re a specialist advisory service within Cushman & Wakefield, focusing on all aspects of the real estate life cycle. From investors, developers, and asset managers through to operators, tenants and Government agencies, we work across the full asset lifecycle. We provide support through the acquisitions stages to buy correctly, and during the operational stages to improve sustainability and commercial outcomes.
As your strategic partner, we help answer critical questions such as:
- Am I acquiring the right site, and do I understand the risks and upside potential around sustainability?
- Am I underwriting this correctly, and what will it take to deliver on my sustainability goals?
- How does Sustainability integrate with existing plans for CapEx and Opex, and am I future proofing the asset with the right strategies?
- Can I stay ahead of the reporting burden, and communicate performance effectively with my investors?
For Retail investors, we provide a structured approach to:
- Sustainability Due Diligence and Climate Risk Assessment: Upfront support before you buy an asset, to ensure risks and upside potential are fully understood.
- Operational Enhancements and Net Zero Roadmaps: Driving existing assets towards or beyond net zero. Retail assets are energy and carbon intensive, so reducing your impact has an immediate benefit on your bottom line.
- Technical Due Diligence: Whether you’re investigating rooftop solar, on-site Electric Vehicle (EV) infrastructure, battery storage or micro-grids, you’ll need the right technical and commercial analysis to find out what stacks up and what doesn’t.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Tenants and customers are the lifeblood of retail. We can help create programs to engage each of these groups around sustainability to drive a more vibrant retail centre, with increased footfall and longer dwell times.
- Disclosure Support: Sustainability reporting is complex but time-consuming. Whether you need help across regulatory or voluntary schemes, we can provide support around data, software, systems and reporting frameworks to get your message communicated clearly and effectively.
Why It Matters
The retail sector has often lagged in terms of sustainability – with high energy and carbon impacts, as well as water, waste and recycling. However, doing well in today’s retail market doesn’t just mean doing less bad – it means doing better. Optimizing power demands across energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other technologies provide resilience and operational savings which immediately improves your ROI. Identifying new ways to drive revenue, such as integrating residential, offices, or other asset classes requires planning but can unlock great financial and sustainability results. And above all else, if you can’t explain your strategies and their benefits to investors, they won’t understand the value being created. Cushman & Wakefield’s Sustainability Services team can play a role across all parts of this journey.
How Sustainability Services Adds Value
By combining financial, technical and subject matter expertise, we help investors:
- Make confident acquisition and divestment decisions with a clear view of risks and upside
- Optimize capital deployment aligned towards sustainability
- Find and roll out future-proofing strategies, such as solar or EVs
- Communicate in a timely and impactful way with your key stakeholders
When you’re getting ready to splurge on your next retail strategy, Sustainability Services helps you do it without the carbon baggage.
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