Our Understanding of Sustainability

Vonovia is part of society. Our day-to-day business is geared toward fulfilling people’s basic need for a home. As a sustainable and responsible residential real estate company, Vonovia believes that it has a particular obligation towards its more than one million customers in Germany, Austria and Sweden, but at the same time also towards society, the environment and its shareholders.

Sustainability in Vonovia’s Organizational Model

In 2019 we reworked our Business Philosophy. We use this to show what we stand for at Vonovia and where we see our role in society. It serves as a guiding framework for our company’s employees and external stakeholders alike. In addition, it also sets out the values we want to be measured against.

In 2020, Vonovia drew up a comprehensive Understanding of Sustainability with the new materiality analysis and the further developed corporate strategy, which we use to communicate our ambition for sustainable action to the outside world. In it, we describe our understanding of sustainability as well as our social task (Purpose) and define the topics that concern us in a total of seven action areas. How we run our company and our daily actions sustainably is largely guided by our understanding of sustainability.

We know that the decisions we make as a company always have an impact on people, neighborhoods, and the environment. We weigh these impacts up carefully, particularly when it comes to modernizing buildings and designing neighborhoods. After all, protecting the environment and our climate should go hand-in-hand with our responsibility for safe and good-quality housing at fair prices. This is what sustainable living means to us. As a real estate company with a long-term focus, we aim to strike a balance between commercial activity on the one hand, and social responsibility and ecological objectives on the other. We are committed to the principles of the social market economy and profitability. Vonovia takes responsibility as a provider of affordable housing and as a service provider, building contractor and developer, but also as a stakeholder in society. For us, sustainability means managing our business activities in a way that generates the greatest possible long-term benefit for society as a whole. This is the standard we want to be measured against. We want this to be embodied by every employee.

We base our sustainability activities on the applicable laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate. In addition, numerous national and supranational standards and agreements serve as a guide for designing our sustainability concept. These include, for example, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and the German government’s 2050 Climate Action Plan. However, observing human rights and labor standards as well as complying with duties of care and protective regulations also play a decisive role for us. We also address current issues, such as the discussion on the EU-wide classification system for sustainable and climate-friendly investments (“EU taxonomy”).