JLL released its Global Sustainability Report 2020 on June 23, emphasizing the firm’s commitment to achieving long-term value to stakeholders by focusing its sustainability efforts on delivering resilient buildings, healthy spaces and inclusive places.
In 2020, JLL set a science-based target to reduce emissions by 2034 and also committed to net zero emissions from its own buildings by 2030. These commitments are milestones to enable the firm to achieve net zero by 2040 across all areas of its operations, including the client sites it manages. The report details JLL’s strategy for meeting these goals.
“Our sustainability report shows great progress on our journey to net zero,” said JLL CEO Christian Ulbrich. “As a core strategic priority, we are embedding and growing sustainability products and services across all our business lines, consistent with JLL’s purpose of shaping the future of real estate for a better world.”
JLL GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY SUMMARY
“2021 is all about the road to net zero and we have focused our efforts on achieving this. But our sustainability program is not exclusively about carbon,” added Richard Batten, JLL’s global chief sustainability officer. “As our 2020 report demonstrates, we have made significant progress against our targets and set new ambitious targets, in part responding to the impact of the pandemic, across all of the ESG metrics.”
2020 performance highlights include:
- 295 sustainable building certifications for clients;
- 20,629 metric tons CO2e averted by advising on renewable energy projects;
- 35% of the global workforce are women;
- One of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute, 14th successive year;
- 79 JLL offices with sustainable building certifications;
- 23.7% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions across JLL’s own real estate and fleet, compared with 2018 baseline;
- 77% reduction in emissions from business travel, compared to 2019;
- All-time low for employee accident rates, a 44% Lost Time Injury Rate reduction from 2018;
- $7.7 million and 7,959 days of employee time contributed to community causes.
Looking to the future, JLL reports it is committing to a new set of ambitious targets.
One goal includes increasing employee time in the community to 23,500 days by the end of 2023, to mitigate against a reduction in community volunteering time last year due to the pandemic.
Other goals that emerged as the top priority for JLL internal and external stakeholders regarded diversity and inclusion. Due to the pandemic, JLL accelerated the timeline of its materiality review to December 2020 from late 2021. Findings showed that the social aspect of ESG, specifically diversity and inclusion, was identified as the most important issue for JLL. Other top priorities included: ethics and compliance, corporate culture and reputation, innovation and technology, energy and climate, employee engagement and satisfaction, and adaptation and resilience.
Additionally, the financial risks of climate change scenarios on real assets are now better understood. In 2019, JLL adopted the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations to understand climate risks impacting the organization. The 2020 report provides a qualitative assessment focused on direct physical climate risk to eight of JLL’s leased headquarter offices.
In the next phase, JLL will continue to stress test the building and market resilience of its own operations, evaluate the implications for clients and also expand its scope to review the wider impacts on society, markets and the firm’s people.
