Sustainable innovation in the built environment has received a lot of attention recently with many experts suggesting that, in order to be successful, sustainability must become part of the culture of a business and be embedded into business systems
For the past decade, Prologis UK has put sustainability at the heart of its business, working with The Planet Mark™ and charity Cool Earth to ensure its logistics buildings bring benefits for the environment, local communities and indigenous people in the rainforests.
Today, every new building the company develops has its environmental sustainability officially certified by The Planet Mark™ Sustainability Certification Scheme. Indeed, over the past decade, 40 Prologis developments have been certified – that amounts to an overall reduction of over 250,000 tons of CO₂ – the equivalent of over 617 million miles driven by an average family vehicle.
Prologis’ sustainability programme also funds education officers from the Eden Project, the charity that partners The Planet Mark™, to go into local schools close to its developments and talk to the children about sustainability and how they can play their part in reducing plastic and protecting the planet. Over the past decade, this programme has been delivered to 6,167 children in 48 schools and colleges.
Prologis was the first UK property company to measure, reduce and mitigate the carbon emissions embodied in the structure and fabric of its new buildings, but it didn’t stop there, as Simon Cox, Head of Sustainability at Prologis UK explains:
“We feel passionately that, as a property company, we should play our part in reducing average lifetime carbon in our buildings and bring the benefits of sustainability to our customers, the local community and beyond. For this reason, we decided to go over and above what is required by The Planet Mark™ certification scheme and mitigate 100% of the embodied carbon in our buildings by working with Cool Earth to protect areas of rainforest.”
Since 2008, Prologis buildings have helped to protect over 10,000 acres of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon and Papua New Guinea: that’s an area equivalent to zone 1 of the London Underground.
The area of rainforest the company is currently helping to protect in Papua New Guinea is part of the Queens Commonwealth Canopy; a network of forest conservation initiatives which involves all 53 countries of the Commonwealth.
“Over the past 10 years, Prologis has made – and continues to make – a powerful contribution to sustainable development through measuring and reducing the whole-life carbon emissions of their buildings,” said Steve Malkin, founder of The Planet Mark™.
“They have chosen to go even further by mitigating the embodied carbon emissions of their new developments, by protecting endangered rainforest.
“In our view, their commitment to sustainability is unprecedented and demonstrates true leadership. Prologis has provided the best possible platform for its customers to continue their sustainability journey,” Steve added.
