Open Dialogue With Society

Objectives, Measures and Indicators

Vonovia provides homes for more than one million people. Early communication is particularly important in cities where we have a large portfolio of properties. Including stakeholders early on is especially relevant when it comes to larger projects, such as comprehensive modernization work. Direct communication with our customers is another of our most important tasks. By engaging in dialogue with tenants’ associations, citizen forums, tenant discussions and assemblies, we include the residents of our neighborhoods in our planning and measures. Vonovia’s aim is to maintain continuous and intensive dialogue with its stakeholder groups. Vonovia thus promotes and expects transparency beyond the individual corporate departments.

Amid the current discussions in society and the world of politics, we consider our commitments in the field of public affairs to be particularly important. Our approach involves establishing contacts and channels of communication. We are open for discussion with members of local political organizations (e.g., committee members, district mayors) and state and government representatives. In the future, we intend to increase our local representatives’ qualifications to enable them to actively drive forward dialogue with political stakeholders. In the world of politics, Vonovia is involved in everyday discussions, attends events organized by political parties and groups and regularly communicates with the CDU’s economic council, the SPD’s economic forum, the Green Party’s economic dialogue group and the FDP’s economic forum. We do not aim to influence any specific planned legislation, but rather view ourselves as a player with practical experience, able to contribute our assessments of the potential consequences of (statutory) regulations to the discussions. Through our involvement, we also aim to recognize any changes to the legal framework early on in order to be able to plan and implement relevant measures within our company.

We are also active in a number of residential and property management associations, contributing to the strengthening of the property management sector in Germany. We are also involved with several initiatives aimed at protecting the climate.

Selected Memberships of Industry Associations and Initiatives 102-13

  • AGV Arbeitgeberverband der Deutschen Immobilienwirtschaft e. V.
  • AGW Arbeitsgemeinschaft Großer Wohnungsunternehmen
  • Bundesverband Freier Immobilien- und Wohnungsunternehmen e. V.
  • DDIV Dachverband Deutscher Immobilienverwalter e. V.
  • DENEFF – Deutsche Unternehmensinitiative Energieeffizienz
  • Deutscher Verband für Wohnungswesen, Städtebau und Raumordnung e. V.
  • DIRK Deutscher Investor Relations Verband e. V.
  • EPRA European Public Real Estate Association
  • GdW Bundesverband deutscher Wohnungs- und Immobilienunternehmen e. V.
  • Initiativkreis Ruhrgebiet
  • Institut für Corporate Governance in der deutschen Immobilienwirtschaft e. V.
  • InWIS Forschung und Beratung – Förderverein e. V.
  • KlimaDiskurs.NRW e. V.
  • Open District Hub e. V.
  • Verein der Freunde und Förderer der EBZ School e. V.
  • vhw – Bundesverband für Wohnen und Stadtentwicklung e. V.
  • ZIA (Zentraler Immobilienausschuss) e. V.

We maintain ongoing and effective dialogue with our investors and shareholders. We again made use of various channels to accomplish this in the 2018 reporting year, for example:

  • Attending 18 investors’ conference days,
  • organizing 27 roadshows for the most important European, Asian and North American financial markets,
  • attending numerous investor forums,
  • numerous one-on-one discussions and conference calls with investors and analysts,
  • various portfolio viewings for interested investors,
  • organization of a Capital Markets Day (June 2018), at which Vonovia showed external participants under the motto “Unlocking Potential” the potential that can arise for the business from the topics of energy, neighbourhood development and project development.

In addition, the new Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Jürgen Fitschen, organized a corporate governance roadshow with 14 of our largest investors in fall 2018. The response to the transparent information on how corporate governance is put into practice at Vonovia was very positive, and we intend to continue to organize these events at regular intervals. We also participate in a whole range of sustainability benchmarks and ratings, for example, the EPRA Best Practices Recommendations on Sustainability Reporting (sBPR), for which we received a Gold Award in 2018 for our sustainability reporting in 2017. Participation in the CDP or the sector-specific GRESB rating also highlights our efforts to make our sustainability performance transparent.