We are sustainable
Sustainability is ingrained in our business model and culture. We strive to not just minimise our environmental impact, but to actually improve the health of the communities where we are.
We take the environmental impact of our activities seriously. We use all the latest, state-of-the-art materials and technologies in all our buildings, old and new, because we think about the long run. As the owners and operators of all our parks, it is our priority to minimise each park’s ecological footprint, ensure the building’s lifespan, and even contribute positively to the locality – like with solar energy, bee hives, and increasing biodiversity.
BREEAM certification
To further enhance and verify the sustainability of our developments and operations, CTP was the first European industrial developer to undertake BREEAM certification for its entire portfolio of industrial and mixed-use properties. Since 2021, all of our buildings—new and old—are certified “Very Good” and higher.
Smart buildings
Smart buildings measure energy consumption in real-time and make it possible to identify ways to make building operations even more energy efficient, which helps to save both money and the environment.
As part of our commitment to sustainability we are upgrading our standing portfolio with data-gathering technology to better analyse building performance. Smart buildings make it possible to monitor energy consumption of a building in real-time. This enables us to identify ways to make building operations even more efficient, which helps to save both money and the environment.
ISO certification
Our commitment to sustainable development includes ISO certification for environmental and energy management systems for our entire portfolio.
Currently all of our buildings in the Czech Republic and Romania have received ISO 14001 (Environmental management) and 50001 (Energy management) certification. This further underscores our commitment to both the environment and our tenants. We continue to implement high sustainability standards in our processes throughout the Group portfolio and plan in the near term to finalise ISO certification in all countries where we operate the CTPark Network.
Circular parks
The circular economy is a “closed-loop” system that minimises waste and resource consumption. We’re rolling out the concept of “circular parks” to maximise sustainability, starting with our A-class office portfolio.
CTP is working to make its industrial and office parks more sustainable. We chose Spielberk Office Centre in Brno as a pilot project to discover what we could do to get to zero waste and greater efficiency in line with the principles of the circular economy. The Czech-based Institute of Circular Economics gave us a set of concrete recommendations that will make the functioning of the entire office park more eco-friendly. This includes things like installing hot-air dryers in all bathrooms, which prevents nearly 80,000 tons of paper waste each year. Other initiatives include investing in better recycling containers and creating systems to enable our clients to easily recycle their office waste, including paper, printer toner, and bio waste. Best practices from the Spielberk pilot project will be transferred to our other office projects in Brno and Ostrava, in addition to our industrial portfolio wherever possible.
Solar plan
As part of our comprehensive sustainability initiative, starting in 2020 all of our new buildings will be constructed “solar ready.” We’ve also formed a partnership with a company that sources and resells 100% renewable energy to enable our clients to purchase 100% renewable, always-on energy at costs rivalling or below standard utility charges. Currently our solar target is to develop 20MW of electricity capacity in the Czech Republic during 2020.
Over the years, CTP has installed many solar plants on the rooftops of our buildings. Currently, we have eight functioning solar farms in the Czech Republic. As part of our comprehensive sustainability initiative, starting in 2020 all of CTP’s new buildings will be constructed “solar ready”—meaning either that the roofs will be built to allow the creation of a solar farm on each building by incorporating the necessary hook-up technology, or they will be built with solar panels already installed. In January 2020, CTP began a partnership with Nano Energies—a company that sources and resells 100% renewable energy—to enable our clients to purchase 100% renewable, always-on energy, at costs rivalling or below standard utility charges. This will be a major advantage for our clients and is only possible due to the scale and scope of the CTPark Network. Currently our target is to develop 20MW of electricity capacity in the Czech Republic during 2020. Our solar initiative allows CTP to offer renewable energy to our tenants in those parks that have it, lowering their operational costs while at the same time providing them with a viable source of renewable energy for their own sustainability goals.
CTForest
CTP is the proud custodian of 570 hectares of forest near the Czech towns of Mladá Boleslav and Zlín. In recent years these forests, like many other forests in the world, have fallen victim to pine beetles which makes them very vulnerable and under threat, especially with long hot summers and forest fires. Furthermore, monocultural forests can’t support diverse, healthy ecosystems. Today, we’re working closely with local specialists to help restore the native biodiversity of these areas to help ensure a resilient, healthy future.
CTP Approach to ESG
CTP takes a robust approach, and targets are therefore based on emissions reductions required to keep global warming at 1.5°C.
CTP’s goal is to achieve 100% carbon neutrality (for Scope 1 & 2) in its corporate operations and portfolio from 2021 onwards.
By the end of 2023, the relevant Scope 3 emissions will be recorded, and the net-zero footprint for Scope 3 will be established by the end of 2025.
Both operational and embedded carbon emissions will be tackled by:
- Taking multiple steps to reduce CO emissions from construction;
- Generating on-site renewable energy;
- Promoting the circularity of our buildings and parks, including responsible resourcing
CTP strongly believes in the value added by integrating its parks into the communities and environment where they are located.
Because we provide tenants with longterm solutions, CTP builds high-quality buildings certified under the BREEAM framework confirmed as ‘Very Good’ or better. We are committed to ‘No Net Loss’ with regards to biodiversity and apply the IFC’s Mitigation Hierarchy for new construction sites.
CTP reduces tenant demand for utility services by installing efficient fixtures, smart meters and management systems, and by promoting energy self-supply.
We invite the community to make use of leisure and shared facilities and/or the infrastructure that are part of our parks for multiple purposes.
Well-being and education are important values of CTP. Internally, CTP is committed to promoting and motivating its employees to lead a healthy lifestyle by supporting sports activities and by providing healthy food options at CTP work locations. We also encourage and support continuous learning among our colleagues. CTP is an inclusive company and supports diversity at the workplace. We are especially aware of the needs of the LGBTQ community and support it where needed and requested. Externally, we are actively engaged with NGOs in education, and we support the well-being of the community by investing in sports facilities and other infrastructure that improves the wellbeing of the people working in and living near our parks.
Proper ethical standards and acting with integrity are among CTP’s core values. We are committed to ethical, fair, and honest behaviour towards our employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, the public authorities and regulators, and any other parties involved in our day-to-day activities.
CTP chose to comply with the Dutch Corporate Governance Code, as it is closest to our DNA. We adhere to EU and local laws and regulations, and we go beyond where possible and where we feel it contributes positively to society.
Our internal KPI’s include financial, operational, and ESG-related indicators that we manage through regular monitoring. We have processes and systems in place to manage risks and to audit the operational performance of our activities.
We intend to incorporate TCFD recommendations and sign up for SBTI climate target in 2023.
What will the perfect warehouse of the future look like?
It’s called a circular building. Thanks to perfect insulation, it almost does not need heating or air conditioning. It works independently of public networks, which it uses only as a backup. It generates energy from solar panels and recaptures , capturing rainwater, which it can then 100% recycles. Even flush toilet water is cleaned on filtereds and re-circulated. Likewise, unused food will be recycled to produce biofuel. The advantage of such a building is that it can be built anywhere and used without additional any environmental requirementspermits. Once it isoperations are over, the supplier will disassemble it and take all the material for recycling and reuse.
What does a smart building look like?
Data collection is the key. With data analysis, we are able to save our tenants money, for example by discovering out that he a tenant is purchasing more reserved electricity capacity than he they actually needs. Or another example: during Christmas time in our office parks—time when virtually no one body was at working in the facility—we found out that the offices were still consuming a large amount of electricity. This was caused by the cooling needed for computer servers and the cooling needed for these servers. So we came up with the idea of pumping in naturally cool air from the outside to cool the servers. These “‘small’” things can save tenants tens of thousands of euros a year. And the list goes on: lighting management can be set up correctly, we can change the door systems in the areas where we space heating is required, etc.
We make parks
CTP is a full-service commercial real estate developer. We build, manage and deliver custom-built, high-tech business parks throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
We build communities
We want to be a good neighbour. We promote socially responsible behavior throughout the countries in which it operates, where we support a wide range of community-based organizations mainly focused on children and adolescents.