It is my pleasure to provide you with an update on Vicinity Centres’ (Vicinity) Sustainability journey through Vicinity Unwrapped – Our Sustainability Story.
FY21 has been another remarkable year, both within Australia and globally, as the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 continue to test our resilience. The unpredictable nature of our current environment has become a harsh reality to accept; however, Vicinity continues to adapt well to these ongoing uncertainties and navigate towards a COVID safe future. Through doing this, the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees, customers, tenants, contractors, and the broader community has remained our priority. While we expect this volatility to continue in the short term, we are optimistic about the future and the countless opportunities we have across our portfolio.
Throughout the year, we have continued to bring our purpose of Enriching Community Experiences to life, and through our sustainability strategy, progress our work to create sustainable and resilient destinations and shape better communities. We have remained open for our communities to access the essential goods and services they need, as well as providing testing clinics and vaccination hubs.
We have also recently entered a three-year partnership with the Australian Red Cross, through which we will deliver our community investment program to alleviate youth unemployment and disengagement within our centres. The broad presence and outstanding reputation the Red Cross have across Australia which will allow us to make a positive difference across our portfolio and continue to build stronger, more resilient communities.
We are tracking well towards our Net Zero by 2030 carbon target*, having reduced our carbon intensity by 5% from FY20 and by continuing to progress our on-site solar program across our wholly-owned retail assets.
Our industry-leading solar program now includes 30.6 MW of solar installed across our managed portfolio, with seven centres added during the year. We now have 19 assets with solar installed.