Material Topics

Conducting a Materiality Analysis 103-1

We aim always to live up to our responsibility toward the environment and society in the best way we can. We achieve this by focusing our commitment on those areas that are particularly relevant to us and our stakeholders. This means taking a structured approach to developments in the European real estate markets and within society at large. We analyze how these developments affect our business and value creation. We also address topics that we can use our business model to influence. We involve our stakeholders in identifying issues that we consider to be material sustainability topics.

We identified and prioritized the key topics for our company and our business activities for the first time when we prepared our sustainability report in 2015. We validated and added to these topics in early 2017, when we conducted a stakeholder survey. Details on this process can be found in the  2016 Sustainability Report 102-48, 102-49

The results of this analysis were translated into a materiality matrix and the topics were classified into four areas:

• Sustainable corporate governance
• Society and customers
• The environment
• Employees

In an international reporting context, sustainability issues are generally assigned to three categories: E (Environmental), S (Social) and G (Governance). In order to ensure that our report is consistent with these requirements, we have combined the “Society and Customers” and “Employees” areas into one category, “Social,” below. The “Environmental” section deals with environmental issues, while the area of sustainable corporate governance falls under “Governance.” 102-46, 102-48

The material topics that we cover have to be revised, first of all due to the acquisition of BUWOG and Victoria Park in 2018 and the associated internationalization and expansion of our activities in the development business and, second, in response to the social debate on the issue of social housing and climate change. As a result, Vonovia will be conducting a new materiality analysis as part of a process of dialogue with relevant stakeholders in 2020, taking into account the changes in the overall conditions and also reflecting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the CSR Directive Implementation Act (CSR-RUG) and the EU Taxonomy Regulation.

Materiality Matrix 102-47