Property

Long-term assets

Our land and properties make up a substantial element of our endowment. Valued at over £400 million, it is a large portfolio of residential, student, commercial and agricultural properties. Most of our land and properties are long-term assets. Along with making our endowment more resilient, they bring unique opportunities to help improve places over many generations.

We aim to be a responsible owner, investor and partner in developments. Therefore, we consider how our properties can contribute to the health of individuals, the health of communities and the health of the planet.

Embedding wellbeing and sustainability in our property

Most of our properties are in Lambeth and Southwark, with the majority located around Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals. We dedicate spaces to healthcare, delivering direct health benefit to the communities around our properties.

We are currently working with specialist advisors to ensure new developments in our boroughs have a positive health impact in their design and execution. For example, part of this work has led to the development of a new framework to support approaches to integrate health and wellbeing into new developments.

Furthermore, we are also exploring how best to use our significant agricultural holdings. For example, these could be used to make space for new homes that will help to create sustainable communities and benefits for generations to come.

We take pride in acting responsibly and sympathetically with our property partners, stakeholders and tenants. This has been particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a significant impact on our healthcare partners and the small business owners who lease our properties. For instance, to help support them we have provided rent concessions to our smaller commercial tenants and offered free parking to NHS staff at our car parks.

In 2020, we began to apply new objectives to our property work that uphold our commitments to combatting climate change by transitioning our property portfolio to net zero, creating and maintaining environments and buildings where inclusive communities can thrive, and supporting the health and wellbeing of residents.

We are developing an action plan to ensure that our property portfolio transition is based on evidence of the appropriate rate to help keep global warming below the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rises to 2°C, with ambition towards 1.5°C and in alignment with the Better Buildings Partnership Climate Commitment.