Chief Executive’s Message

2020 has been a year like no other.

As I reflect on this remarkably challenging year, my thoughts immediately go to our employees. All through 2020, our teams worked in extremely difficult conditions to ensure that we continued to provide safe and reliable places for our tenants and communities. I am particularly grateful to our customer-facing staff for the selfless dedication they displayed, day after difficult day. They went above and beyond to keep our properties safe and hygienic, and provided support for our tenants, visitors and local communities.

Throughout the year, we utilised the Swire Properties Community Caring Fund and worked closely with our NGO partners and employees to hold volunteering sessions and donation matching programmes in support of healthcare workers, cleaning contractors and people in need throughout society. To me, these were truly inspiring actions.

My thoughts are then drawn to the idea of “resilience”. The year 2020 exposed many vulnerabilities within our cities, businesses and communities. I believe that we will have to work even harder in the years ahead to build economic, social and environmental resilience in all our places. I also firmly believe that our SD 2030 Strategy is more important today than at any point in the past. If, over the next ten critical years, we continue to prioritise SD, we will develop more resilient places regardless of the challenges to come.

This year was particularly important to us in terms of SD, as our teams worked to deliver on our 2020 targets, set in 2016 when we launched the strategy; while also expending much time and effort on formulating our future goals. This resulted in even more ambitious SD targets being set for 2025 and 2030. Given the current global disruptions and uncertainties, it is critical for us to invest further in our SD agenda – this is reflected in our new five and ten-year targets.

The antidote to disruption and uncertainty is action, and this is the context through which we intend to “advance to 2030”.

Climate change continues to be a central focus for our business, and it is encouraging to see governments around the world stepping up to show leadership with clear net-zero carbon targets. In December 2020, Swire Properties also committed to the Science Based Targets initiative’s Business Ambition for 1.5°C campaign, and we are working to ramp up our science-based targets to align with the 1.5°C trajectory, in order to contribute to the transition to a net-zero emissions economy.

Through these science-based targets, we will do our part over the coming decade to support these goals and help decarbonise our economy. We are already well on our way – one example is the progress we made on energy and carbon reduction in the Chinese mainland in 2020; I am proud to share that this year, Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li Chengdu became our first development to be powered by 100% renewable electricity, thereby achieving net-zero carbon in annual electricity consumption for both landlord and tenant operations. This is a significant milestone on our decarbonisation journey, and we will continue to explore opportunities to expand our renewables footprint as the market develops.

In order to strengthen our economic resilience, we must also support the development of green capital markets. Approximately 30% of our current bond and loan facilities are from green financing, coming from green bonds, sustainability-linked loans, and in 2020, our first green loan – a five-year HK$1 billion facility. The proceeds from this loan will fund on-going green building developments and technologies that will save energy and water and enable us to invest further in renewables. As you can see from our 2025 targets, in the years ahead, we intend to increase green financing even further. We hope to see more companies follow suit to accelerate this transition to greener capital markets.

Retaining our high rankings on several leading global sustainability indices this year has been a source of great pride for our employees. This extraordinary year also showed me, again and again, the pride that our people take in creating and caring for our places. Back in 2016, we felt it was important that “Places” sit at the heart of our SD 2030 Strategy; this year has proven that this was a wise choice.

In April, we published our first Places Impact Report, which, together with economists and academic experts, took us over a year to research and write. The objective was simple: to gain understanding on “what makes a great place” in order that we may continue to raise the bar in each of our developments, every single year. The report identified four key determinants of a great place – vibrancy, livelihood, wellbeing, and resilience – which will inform our future development decisions.

For me, these four dimensions capture why we must continue to drive our SD agenda over the coming decade. 2020 was a challenging year for all of us and 2021 will continue to be a test. By focusing on our new targets, we believe we will successfully advance to 2030, supporting livelihoods and wellbeing, and ultimately creating more vibrant and resilient places.