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Building our pipeline of female talentWe piloted an Emerging Female Leaders program to further build our pipeline of female talent as we work towards our target of 40% female, 40% male and 20% either gender represented across all levels of management.The program simultaneously supported skill development and removed barriers which prevent talent from progressing.Our Gender Equity working group leader and General Manager HR Operations, Maria Stamoulis said: “The program targets our emerging female leaders because it addresses the skills we know women need to ‘own’ their career, which are different to the skills men need. Specifically, those skills include building confidence and developing self-belief to be ready for broader and/or more senior roles.”16 emerging and high-potential female talent were identified and endorsed by our General Managers and Directors to participate in the program.Some of our emerging female talent with program leader Gillian FoxDeveloped in partnership with the Gillian Fox Group, the program focused on education, experience and exposure, and was designed to empower women to own their careers at Scentre Group.The education component included a webinar with the participants’ managers, two half-day workshops and three individual coaching sessions.Our emerging leaders also undertook an assignment on a Scentre Group business initiative designed to demonstrate their business acumen. Exposing them to our business leaders, participants presented their assignments to our Board Member Margaret Seale, Peter Allen, members of our Executive and their relevant managers.Participant feedback demonstrates the impact of the program on confidence and self-belief.When asked what was different as a result of the program, participants said:I believe I deserve my place in this organisation.
I believe in myself and will share my thoughts and ideas.
I will say ‘yes’ to more things I previously didn’t believe I could do.
I will ask the business to take a risk on me like I will take on myself.We plan to run the program again next year as part of our ongoing commitment to achieving gender equity in our workplace.In the meantime, to keep momentum and continue building leadership skills, our emerging female leaders’ will continue to champion their business initiatives. There will also be formal three and six month follow ups with HR and their managers.We are endorsed by WGEA as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality and included in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index.

Building our pipeline of female talent

Scentre Group recognised with &#39;A&#39; score for leadership in sustainability
Scentre Group has been recognised for leadership in corporate sustainability by CDP, securing a place on its ‘A List’.CDP’s annual environmental disclosure and scoring process is widely recognised as the gold standard of corporate environmental transparency. In 2021, over 590 investors with over US$110 trillion in assets and 200 major purchasers with US$5.5 trillion in procurement spend requested companies to disclose data on environmental impacts, risks and opportunities through CDP’s platform. Some 13,000 companies responded.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen said: “This is the first time Scentre Group has been included in the A List of Companies and reflects our commitment and progress on climate disclosure, awareness and management of environmental risks and setting of short and longer-term targets.“Since Scentre Group was established in 2014, we have reduced our total scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30 per cent. This reduction has been driven primarily by energy efficiency initiatives and the installation of rooftop solar across our portfolio of Westfield Living Centres. We have a net zero emissions target by 2030 and have announced an interim target of 2025 to achieve 50 per cent of this target. Our New Zealand portfolio will be powered by 100% renewable electricity from January 2022.“We are focused on working with our retail partners to help them achieve their environmental objectives as we recognise the influential role we can play in the value chain. We are committed to keeping our customers informed of the actions we are taking to reduce our environmental impact and leave a positive legacy in our communities.”Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP, said: “Many congratulations to all the companies on this year’s A List. Taking the lead on environmental transparency and action is one of the most important steps businesses can make, even more so in the year of COP26 and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. The scale of the risk to businesses from climate change, water insecurity and deforestation can no longer be ignored, and we know the opportunities of action far outweigh the risks of inaction. Leadership from the private sector is essential for securing global ambitions for a net-zero, nature positive and equitable world. Our A List celebrates those companies who are preparing themselves to excel in the economy of the future by taking action today.”The full list of companies that made this year’s CDP A List is available here, along with other publicly available company scores.

'A' score for leadership in sustainability

Piloting our Business Partner Support ProgramSupporting our business partners through various stages of their growth cycle is one way we will strengthen our relationships and achieve mutual success. We’re pleased with the feedback from a Business Partner Support Program focusing on our SME businesses.Our Regional Manager Centre Experience, Lachlan Monfries said: “We’re looking at how we can add value to our businesses in the long-term and  how we can support them  as they pursue their customer strategy, particularly our SME retailers.“An important element of how we are planning to do that is through a Business Partner Support Program. We know that the brands and businesses in retail that are continuing to win today are the ones who have invested in really good physical store networks and can amplify their ability to connect with customers physically as well as online. It’s not one or the other – it’s maximising the opportunity to connect with customers across all channels.“Throughout 2021, government restrictions across Australia and New Zealand meant many of our SME business partners or ‘mum and dad’ retailers were temporarily closed, so providing support was more important than ever.”To address the immediate issues of trading while in lockdown, our team partnered with Kelly Slessor, a digital retail expert, to tailor an online seminar for our business partners that focused on setting up a digital footprint and organising back-end technology for click and collect and online sales.Over 100 people attended the free-of-charge seminar and feedback was positive.To continue supporting our partners build their knowledge around online trading, we subsidised 50% of the cost of undertaking Kelly’s six-week Digital Growth Program for seminar attendees.
 Ben, Campbell’s Newsagency in Westfield Marion, said: &quot;What a wealth of UpToDate information Kelly has to offer. Kelly’s approach in teaching and desire for your business to do well is unquestionable. As a business person, I now know what I need to make my online shopping platforms work, without getting slugged hefty IT costs.
Helen Wieland, Sunglass Couture, said: “What a great course and thank you for being our Digital Growth Coach. The information of where to find, how to do, what to look for and in particular the data reports and tools to use have saved a lot of time and money. The ability to watch back sessions has been a major help too. Would recommend other business’s get on this course with you to learn and grow their ecommerce business.”
Geneane Gusse, Gallerie Fine Jewellery, said: “The course with Kelly is a fabulous digital journey of information tips &amp; tricks, current &amp; up to date with the ever-changing digital world. Lots of information available and a whole book of notes to implement to take my digital journey to the next level. Can’t wait to see my business rank number one in google searches.”
Lachlan continued: “In addition to positive feedback from those who continued to complete the Digital growth Program, a number of retailers have since committed to joining Westfield Direct to extend the reach of their businesses through our online aggregated click and collect service.“Westfield Direct is an extension of our in-centre experience. Through Westfield Direct, our business partners can leverage their store networks to increase productivity and reduce the cost of fulfilment.“Following the success of Kelly’s Digital Growth Seminar, we are assessing opportunities to develop an expanded seminar series with a range of content to inspire and grow the capability of our business partners.”

Piloting our Business Partner Support Program

Westfield Tuggerah installs sensory wallWestfield Tuggerah has installed a permanent sensory wall to create a sensory-friendly and welcoming Living Centre environment for their local community.Megan Jessop, Concierge Westfield Tuggerah, said: “Sensory walls give tactile, visual and auditory sensory input and are an invitation for people who live with these sensitivities to explore, discover and enjoy their sensory preferences.“Introducing a sensory wall alongside our existing inclusion programs of Quiet Time, sensory headphones hire and dementia friendly amenities, makes our Living Centre that much more accessible, comfortable and enjoyable for people who live sensory sensitivities.

“This initiative supports our ambition to become essential to people, communities and the businesses that interact with them.

“A father with an eight-year autistic son walked past the opening ceremony and stopped to thank us for the space, explaining the challenges of visiting a shopping centre for his family. It was special to have that immediate community feedback.

“Inclusion has many dimensions and this is just one of the ways Westfield Tuggerah aspires to be our community’s third place after home and work, their first-choice destination and we will deliver our purpose: creating extraordinary places, connecting and enriching communities.”

Westfield Tuggerah installs sensory wall

Building a safe, inclusive and accountable cultureSince Scentre Group was established more than seven years ago, we have focused on building a culture that sets us apart. Developing policies that bring our diverse and inclusive workplace to life is a key part of this.One of the key topics and issues that is included in these policies is our zero tolerance to sexual harassment.Last month the Commonwealth Government passed the Respect at Work Amendment Bill which addresses issues of sexual harassment in the workplace.Our CEO, Peter Allen, has been a member of the Champions of Change Coalition (CCC) since 2015, one of the men stepping up beside women on gender equality. He was recently interviewed by the ABC about some of the issues that came out of the Respect@Work report as well as recent government legislation.You can read the full article here.Peter said Scentre Group takes a zero tolerance policy to sexual harassment in the workplace and this is reinforced in our employment contracts, our Code of Conduct, our policies and how we operate our business. Some of the more recent changes to our employment contracts that include sexual harassment were made following the CCC’s Disrupting the System Report.“We take a zero tolerance approach on sexual harassment because we operate as a responsible business and it’s simply the right thing to do for our people. But we also have an ambition to be the place for talent to thrive, and to attract and retain the best people, we need to offer the best culture and opportunities,” he said.There are other policy changes we’ve made – informed by the great work of our Diversity and Inclusion Council employee-led working groups – that contribute to creating a safe and inclusive environment for our people, recognising the support that our people may need when faced with some of the most challenging circumstances in their lives.For example, in 2020, we joined the Stillbirth Foundation Australia Corporate Registry and updated our parental leave policy to offer a week’s paid leave to an employee who experiences a miscarriage.In 2020 the updates to our parental leave policy included:Extending Secondary Carer Leave to 4 weeks (from 2 weeks)Extending the allowable default timeframe to take parental leave from 12 months to 18 months and to request an extension up to two yearsReducing the qualifying service requirement for paid parental leave from 12 months to 6 monthsBroadening the policy to specifically cover support for instances of still born, premature birth, IVF treatment and foster care/adoptionContinuing service recognition - long service leave and personal leave (while on unpaid leave)Superannuation continues for the full parental period regardless if it is paid or unpaidExtending our return to work coaching to secondary carers.In addition, we have a domestic violence leave policy that includes:10 days of additional paid personal leave for victims of domestic and family violence, increased at managers discretion dependent on the individual circumstances.Support measures include flexible work arrangements, relocation to suitable employment within the workplace, additional EAP support sessions for the employee and affected family members and access to legal assistance, funds for emergency or temporary housing, financial advice and medical support.Safety measures can be put in place in consultation with the employee and include changes to working hours or the pattern of hours worked, changes to duties and/or job location, unlisted phone numbers (safe and protected phone line to seek help) or an additional handset and changes to telephone numbers or email addresses to avoid harassment.Our work to build a safe, diverse and inclusive culture has been recognised by WGEA as an Employer of Choice, we’re a Gold Employer in the Australian Workplace Equality Index and we’re also one of ten Australian companies included in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index.

Building a safe, inclusive and accountable culture

From Westfield Local Heroes to Landscapers: enhancing CX and helping at-risk young peopleWestfield Local Heroes is our flagship community recognition and awards program.The program discovers and celebrates individuals who make a positive impact in their local community or on their local environment.Every year, Westfield Living Centres across Australia and New Zealand awards up to three, $10,000 grants to deserving individuals and their organisations who are nominated and voted for by the local communities.Announcing the Heroes and presenting the grant is not the end of the program though, it’s just the beginning of our relationship with our Local Heroes and working to support them, support our local communities.In 2018, Todd Meyn was a Westfield Local Hero for Westfield Carousel.Todd is a BMX professional who volunteers as a bike mechanic with BikeRescue, the flagship mentoring program of the Dismantle youth organisation. The outreach program seeks to re-engage at-risk young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through hands-on bike building in a supportive mentoring environment.In 2019, Dismantle founded another social enterprise to support at-risk youth: ReNew Property Maintenance.ReNew is a commercial landscaping and property maintenance enterprise that employs at-risk young people to work alongside ReNew’s maintenance staff to gain paid employment, training, support, and that all important first step into the workforce.Having kept in touch with Westfield and understanding our genuine focus on connecting and enriching communities, three years after Todd was a Westfield Local Hero, ReNew’s Business Development Manager, Darren Thomas, reached out to our Community Experience team to see if there was any opportunity for us to support ReNew expand their program.Our Regional Facilities Manager in WA &amp; SA, Matt Holmes met with Darren to discuss how we could work together to support the local community.Matt said: “Our local community had nominated and voted Dismantle as their Westfield Local Hero, highlighting the importance of the youth work they are doing. That validation from the community that this is an important support service for them, coupled with our focus on serving the community in which we operate, meant we were immediately interested in exploring how we could support ReNew.“ReNew was looking for maintenance work that youth could complete on a regular basis around our Westfield Living Centre. We focused on finding work that would also allow for a sense of pride and accomplishment at what they had contributed at the end of the day.“Westfield Innaloo has an outdoor area as part of our cinema complex and ReNew is now managing a restoration process of this area. The team has just commenced an initial clean up project which will also assist us in scoping a long-term recurring engagement. The work they are doing is incrementally enhancing our Living Centre’s gardens and extended grounds, at the same time as supporting our Westfield Local Hero alumni’s amazing work and engaging our local youth community with our Living Centre in a positive way.“Working with ReNew is a win win win for us all.”Dismantle CEO, Pat Ryan, said he is thrilled to be partnering with Scentre Group again: “It’s fantastic to continue and expand our working relationship with Scentre Group; they are wonderful champions of community and that is evident here.“ReNew is currently providing award-wage employment for close to 80 disadvantaged young people a year. For our young people, the challenges and barriers they face are significant and often debilitating. Employment is one of the most effective tools in breaking the cycle of disadvantage and giving these young guys a better shot at a future. Working with community-minded clients like Scentre Group helps us to help more vulnerable young people into their most important job; their first one.”In addition, our other WA Living Centres are exploring opportunities where it may be possible for them to engage ReNew to deliver an improved customer experience as well as a positive social outcome for their communities.

Helping at-risk young people and enhancing the customer experience

Scentre Group Progresses Net Zero Emissions Pathway and Transition PlanScentre Group has provided an update on its pathway to achieve net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 across its wholly-owned portfolio, announcing its plan to achieve at least 50% of this target by 2025.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen included the update during type: asset-hyperlink id: 7i3GAr8HkuVwRs7f8g3wMK and said it highlighted the progress the company was making on its objective to operate as a responsible, sustainable business.“Operating our business as efficiently as we can and minimising our environmental impact is important to all of our stakeholders and is integrated into the way we run our business,” Mr Allen said.“In 2020 we committed to a target of net zero (Scope 1 &amp; 2) emissions by 2030 across our wholly-owned portfolio, building on our existing environmental targets, energy efficiency initiatives (such as LED lighting installation across the portfolio and energy analytics and building management system enhancements) and targeted renewable energy generation and procurement opportunities. We also publicly supported the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).“Since the establishment of Scentre Group more than seven years ago, we have reduced our electricity use every year. Despite the operational disruption of 2020, we reduced our energy use by 10%, of which 4% was continued operational efficiency.“We are encouraged by our ability to achieve our 35 per cent emission intensity target (2009 baseline) five years ahead of our original target.“During 2020 we generated more than 8,000 MWh of electricity from solar installations across five of our Westfield Living Centres – Westfield Marion, Westfield Plenty Valley, Westfield Carousel, Westfield Kotara and Westfield Coomera.“We will continue to evaluate and roll-out onsite solar opportunities as well as continue to assess off-site renewable energy procurement opportunities.“Our New Zealand portfolio will be powered by 100% renewable electricity from January 2022.”

Our New Zealand portfolio will be powered by 100% renewable electricity from January 2022.

Progressing our net zero emissions pathway

Working with government, health authorities and businesses to facilitate access to COVID vaccinationOur Westfield Living Centres are conveniently located in the heart of communities, close to where people live and are familiar and trusted places for the broader community. For these reasons we have been vocal in our advocacy with governments and health authorities to consider our locations as part of the national vaccination roll-out.Early in August 2021, we opened our first vaccination hub at Westfield Chermside in Brisbane in partnership with provider Aspen Medical, focusing on residents and workers in the disability and aged care sectors.Since then, the partnership has extended to facilitate the opening of another site at Westfield Tuggerah on the Central Coast of NSW; a centre that caters to a high population of customers aged 65+ and located in close proximity to a number of aged-care facilities.Further north in Newcastle, we opened our first drive-through vaccination hub in our carpark at Westfield Kotara, in partnership with our local retailer My Health Medical Centre. My Health Medical Centre are running two clinics Monday to Friday using 12 car spaces, with six cars at a time to allow sufficient space between cars.We have a good track-record in working with government and health authorities throughout the pandemic, in particular when it comes to mobilising COVID-19 testing facilities across our Westfield Living Centres.In August 2021, we partnered with Burwood Council and Histopath Diagnostic Specialists to set up a drive-through COVID testing clinic in part of our Westfield Burwood carpark.The clinic operates from 6am - 8pm daily with testing occurring as an ‘in vehicle’ only arrangement to provide a safe approach for the person and health worker. Customer parking and access to the centre remains open.In addition, many of our pharmacy retail partners offer walk-in COVID vaccinations in our centres. We remain open to working with providers on a case-by-case basis to leverage our proximity to the majority of the population for these critical public health initiatives and exploring opportunities to include relevant vaccination location messaging in our content plans for all centres.Histopath Diagnostic Specialists drive through COVID testing clinic in Westfield Burwood

Facilitating access to COVID vaccination

Increasing our team’s confidence to support people in distressTo equip our team members with the confidence and capabilities to engage and support people in our Westfield Living Centres who may be in crisis, we have rolled out bespoke Mental Health First Aid Training across our portfolio.The four-hour training focuses on the prevalence of mental health distress and conditions in our communities, combatting stigma and misconceptions, and providing our teams with practical tools to identify and support people who may be in distress while visiting one of our Living Centres.While the training is grounded in our Youth Resilience Plan to engage youth, promote positive social behaviours and nurture resilience, the approach and skills learnt can be applied to all relevant situations, and given the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our customers, business partners and teams, this capability is more important than ever.Our National Community Experience Manager, Pam Wilson, said: “Overwhelmingly our team members agreed the training equipped them to better identify the signs of distress and crisis. This is hugely important as it’s the first step in being able to engage and support someone in distress.

“They also felt confident to use the tools they were taught, with 99 per cent of team members rating their confidence as very high or high after the training, up from just 40 per cent before the training.”

The training included videos from community members and two of our own Risk and Security Managers who shared their lived experiences as case studies to support the team’s learning which our team highly valued. 

“This session was so valuable I can’t believe I have never learnt this content until today. We should be teaching this in schools and I feel really grateful our company sees the value in this. Thank you!”

 “The real-life examples from people who have worked through mental illness was quite impactful, as well as the group’s willingness to talk to examples they have faced either at work or home.”

“Hearing from the members of the public who has/had suffered through mental illness and what signs to look out for really helped my understanding. Ultimately they just want to be treated with respect whilst they are experiencing their mental break or issue.”

Importantly, the training is customised to our Scentre Group operating environment and complements existing training we deliver, including Maybo Conflict Resolution and Fulcrum Emergency Management, and integrates with our Customer Service and Security policies and procedures.

What comes next…With team members being so highly engaged with the Mental Health Training, we are working with our training partner, Aspect Mental Health, to evolve the training for our wider teams as well as explore how we could engage our service providers with a shortened practical session to be rolled out in early 2022. 

Increasing our team’s confidence to support people in distress

Turning organic waste into fertiliserThrough heightened engagement with our retail partners, Westfield Doncaster has more than quadrupled their yearly 2019 waste collection figure in seven months to July of 2021. With such a huge increase in diverted organic waste, came the need for a more innovative recycling solution and the successful introduction of an organic dehydrator.Westfield Doncaster organics team from left:
Zachariah Pavlou, Millennium – Dock Master
George Rosario, Millennium – Cleaning Supervisor
Dirk Phillips, Scentre Group – Facilities CoordinatorOur Regional Facilities Manager in Victoria, Oliver Madden said: “The team at Westfield Doncaster has been working with retailers to recycle their organic waste since 2018 and the results of this engagement saw the recovery of 69 tonnes of organic waste in 2019.“The increased focus on retailers’ organic waste collections at Doncaster began in early 2020 as we were preparing to unveil a rooftop oasis with 13 new restaurants in the Doncaster Dining precinct at the end of the year. We wanted to consolidate our waste collection processes with our existing retail partners prior to the increase in organic waste that would be generated from additional food retailers.”That process began with a re-education program created by Facilities Coordinator, Dirk Phillips.The cleaning team who managed the existing organic waste collections visited retailers to provide additional resources and education material around the process.Building on this engagement, each retailer was asked to nominate a sustainability champion who would act as the key contact for our centre team.Dirk said: “Anthony Roberts, our Retail Experience Manager, and I found that by having a champion at each retailer who was focused on communicating and implementing the organic waste recovery initiative with their team, there was a greater understanding of the process, increased participation, and we received a higher quality feedback about their waste needs and engagement. That allowed us to tailor what we were doing to support our retailers which was so important because it’s a whole of centre effort to achieve great outcomes in this area.”When Victoria’s COVID restrictions lifted in late 2020, customers immediately returned to our Westfield Living Centres. Having already achieved tangible increases in the amount of organic waste being collected and recycled through their retailer education and engagement program to date, and with Doncaster Dining now in full swing, the team took the opportunity to intensify their focus on organic waste collection by introducing a new cleaning team member in the role of Dock Master.The creation of the Dock Master position established a continuous focus on waste management, including recycling and organic waste collections, within the centre. The positive impact on collection levels and simultaneous reduction in cross contamination was immediate.Organic collections in 2019 totalled 69 tonnes. By year end 2020 the total had increased to 130 tonnes.By November 2020 the organic waste collections had increased to a scale that was no longer sustainable with the current recycling methods and a new innovative solution was sought.In early 2021 the team installed an organics dehydrator.Retail partners now collect their organic waste in specific organic bins provided by the centre and at the end of trade, take their collections to the dock where our cleaning team manages the loading and processing of waste into the dehydrator.Oliver said: “It’s changed what we can achieve at Westfield Doncaster.“Where we were once limited due to the size of the docks and twice weekly organic waste collections; we can now process the bulk of our organic waste onsite within 24 hours, and we create a sustainable fertiliser by-product in the process.“The fertiliser produced by the dehydrator is distributed to multiple vegetable farms in Gippsland as well as to a fertiliser processing plant for further refining. In addition, having the dehydrator has reduced the Co2 emissions that were generated by twice-weekly organic waste pick-ups and creates a cleaner, safer dock space for our people and retail partners.As at 30 June 2021, Westfield Doncaster’s organic waste collections sit at over 200 tonnes, with a record collection in May 2021 of more than 50 tonnes.

Turning organic waste into fertiliser

Offering local youth a safe space to develop their skillsIn early 2020 the Westfield Garden City team implemented three new programs for local youth: ‘Youth Safe Space’, ‘Strength’ and ‘Shine’.Eighteen months on and the program continues to grow, and numerous Westfield retailers have joined the movement to support young people to build their skills, resilience and positive community connections.It began with Leata’s vision
In her former role as Risk &amp; Security Manager, Leata Hunter had a vision to create a safe space for the youth in Westfield Garden City where they could safely socialise and connect through positive activities.She reached out to our 2020 Westfield Local Hero organisation Hillsong City Care Youth, the YMCA, PCYC and Queensland Police and together they have brought her vision to life.“It’s such a simple, but effective concept. The local youth come to our ‘Youth Safe Space’ sessions to play basketball and board games, enjoy a sausage sizzle and listen to live music while they connect with each other and with positive adult role models,” said Leata.After just three events, COVID-19 paused the program, but the enthusiasm and engagement from the youth was already clear with over 150 attendees at the third event.Strength and Shine begins
As COVID restrictions eased in September 2020, the Westfield and Hillsong City Care Youth teams implemented Strength and Shine as a small group, nine-week program.The Strength and Shine program supports youth to develop a positive sense of self-worth, strength, purpose, resilience and significance. They learn how to identify and positively respond to emotions and to nurture their sense of value and recognition.Leata said: “We invited a group of six youth to attend the program and connected with their parents to seek support when they were in their home environment in order to engage them on as many fronts as possible.“The first week saw the youth set their own boundaries and guidelines for the safe space, which included respect, confidence, resilience, and creating a safe place without judgment or fear of speaking their voice.“The core values of the Strength and Shine program are artistically written on the walls in our Centre Management Office, where the young people now feel a sense of ownership, respect and belonging within the centre that they didn’t have before.”To continue to support the six graduates on their journey of self development, the Hillsong City Care Team offered opportunities to join their 12-month mentorship program during 2021 called ‘Youth Coach’.The next phase…
Seeing the benefit of this proactive engagement on the youth, the Westfield and Hillsong teams reintroduced the Youth Safe Space program earlier this year. They started with events every three months and also connected with the local high school principals and Westfield retailers.Leata said: “We held a retail workshop for 20 students, hosted by the Store Manager from Myer Garden City. The students were able to hear first-hand what a career in a major department store looks like and what the requirements are.“The students were really engaged and loved the Myer merchandise and gift cards they were given. The Store Manager is keen to continue these workshops as an avenue to recruit casual staff – which is a really positive step for these youth to potentially be considered for a casual job.”With multiple retailers agreeing to host workshops, the frequency of the Youth Safe Space workshops is increasing from every three months to fortnightly.Leata finished: “It’s really heartening to know that together as a community we can make a real difference to these youth. Everyone needs community”.In addition to Safe Space continuing, eight new students are currently being engaged to participate in the next Strength and Shine programs.We operate our Westfield Living Centres through a customer-obsessed lens and engage with our communities in ways that are meaningful to them. Every centre has a bespoke Community Plan that identifies the opportunities, needs, local partnerships and initiatives that are most relevant to the community. In addition, we have a Youth Resilience Plan specifically designed to empower and equip our teams to help young people in the communities we serve to thrive and build resilience.We aim to:proactively and positively engage with young people to cultivate mutual respect and positive behaviournurture inclusive and capacity building activities for youthimprove access for youth to connect with relevant community services.

Offering local youth a safe space to develop their skills

GOLD! 2021 Australian LGBTQ Inclusion AwardsWe are honoured to be named as a Gold Employer in the AWEI 2021 Australian LGBTQ Inclusion Awards – building on our silver tier recognition last year.Our CEO, Peter Allen said: “We are so proud to have achieved this benchmark recognition. It reflects how we have continued to learn and grow as a company and as leaders to ensure our people from the LGBTI+ community feel welcome, comfortable and safe to be themselves at Scentre Group.“We know achieving that is essential for us if we are to be the place for talent to thrive.“Our goal is to keep building inclusive capability, so it is just the way we work at Scentre Group.&quot;I would also like to thank all members of our employee-led Diversity and Inclusion Working Groups especially our LGBTI+ Working Group, as well as members of our broader D&amp;I Council who continue to raise awareness, explore policy enhancements, provide education, offer support and foster a culture of inclusion.“We will continue to strive for best practice in all areas of diversity and inclusion.”

GOLD! 2021 Australian LGBTQ Inclusion Awards

Smart Water meters and real time data deliver significant water and business cost savingsIn 2020, we completed a project to install smart meters on main flow gate water meters in our Westfield Living Centres with the aim of providing our facilities teams real time data and insights to support water management across all of our centres.New smart meters were primarily installed across our ACT, NSW and QLD centres, as smart meters were already installed at our Victorian centres, and data loggers supplied by water authorities were in place in SA and WA.With the smart meters installed, our facilities teams now receive real time data about water usage and variances via our Environmental Data Reporting Platform.In addition, we piloted an additional Data Insights and Notification Program called AWARE, which delivers actionable insights for each Living Centre, notably the centre’s baseflow (the litres of water used per minute) and any fluctuations to this baseline on an hourly and daily basis.Access to this combined data in real time, has assisted our facilities teams in the identification of leaks and losses within much shorter periods of time than in the past, in addition to alerting centres when their base flow is considered to be higher than our average centre. Over the course of 2020, these insights have assisted in saving around 50,000 litres of water loss.Our Westfield Warringah Mall Facilities Manager, Tim Parker said:“In the past we would have relied on monthly water use estimates and water utility invoices to inform water use trends and subsequent action. Having access to real time data allows us to swiftly respond, identify the issues and rectify it as quickly as possible. Having smart technology results in water loss via leaks and losses being actioned in shorter timelines. It also allows us to focus on improving our water management practices to reduce our overall usage.” Data Accuracy &amp; Internal Insights ReportingA key element of any smart meter solution is to ensure data accuracy. With smart meter technology installed across our entire Living Centre portfolio, we undertook a validation and verification exercise to confirm the accuracy of our smart meters compared to our water utility invoices.We considered a 95 per cent accuracy level in this data to be the appropriate benchmark to both inform and drive daily performance improvements.With improved accuracy of our data, in Q4 2020, we created a Weekly Water Use Report generated by our support office team and issued to all Facilities Managers to support their management of centre water. This weekly report, in addition to proving highly valuable water use insights, enhances accountability for our Living Centres to perform relative to their regional peers.As we move into 2021, we will continue to build our internal data and insights capability around water usage to drive further efficiencies in our water management plans and will continue to produce our Weekly Water Use Report.Combined with our Environmental Data Reporting Platform, our focus on water use reduction has never been greater and as we embed our new reporting into the business across 2021, we are confident we will see a marked improvement in water use and a decrease in our overall centres’ water intensity.

Smart Water meters deliver water savings

Westfield Wall of GratitudeThe activation was launched across our 42 Living Centres throughout November 2020 with the aim to connect our communities.Customers were invited to write a message of thanks to someone who had helped them through 2020 and post it on the Wall of Gratitude. With 18,500 messages of thanks posted, the activation helped our customers feel connected to their communities.For every message, Scentre Group donated $1 to Lifeline Australia or Lifeline Aotearoa on our customers behalf, totaling $19,000. We partnered with Lifeline to support their important work and to promote their services to our customers, community and retailers who may need critical support from Lifeline following such a difficult year.Our National Community Experience Manager, Pam Wilson said: “2020 was an extremely hard year for many. By creating a simple, genuine and heartfelt activation for our customers we help nurture resilience and hope in our communities.”Customers shared messages of those essential workers and first responders who went above and beyond, of neighbours and family who delivered groceries, community services and even Westfield cleaners for keeping them safe.

Westfield Wall of Gratitude

Magnolia PlaceMagnolia Place opened at Westfield Helensvale in October 2020. It is the first multi-service approach to domestic and family violence assistance and prevention anywhere in Australia. Scentre Group’s Diversity &amp; Inclusion Domestic &amp; Family Violence Working Group Lead, Andrew Hulls, said: “Westfield Local Heroes is a powerful program designed to discover and celebrate community role models who’s work positively impacts the lives of others, including connecting them to important services.  “Partnering with Chris Boyle to open Magnolia Place for the Westfield Helensvale community is the epitome of this, embodying what we can achieve when we harness the knowledge, experience and passion of all that we do at Scentre Group.” Located at one of the main entrances of Westfield Helensvale, Magnolia Place provides a &#39;soft&#39; introduction to services for people in the local community experiencing family and domestic violence.It is through working at Westfield Garden City, Leasing Executive, Isaac Curgenven first met 2019 and 2020 Westfield Local Hero, Chris Boyle. Chris is the Founder of StandbyU Foundation. StandbyU Foundation helps individuals reconnect with friends and family and builds a shield of support and safety around them using special smartwatches. 

Magnolia Place was ultimately born from Isaac’s and Chris’ shared vision to create a community hub in a Westfield Living Centre that provides support and hope to those who need it.

Issac said: “I had a vision for a community support hub but it wasn’t until I moved to Westfield Helensvale and learnt the details behind the Northern Gold Coast’s un-enviable title as the domestic violence capital of Queensland that the project gained momentum.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, one of our retailers decided not to expand their premises and suddenly we were presented with the perfect tenancy location and a Westfield Local Hero with the knowledge and experience to partner with us to deliver the services our community undoubtedly needs.Creating Magnolia Place is about responding to the local community’s need and delivering on Our Purpose of connecting and enriching communities.Isaac continued: “We wanted to be – and now are – genuine partners with StandbyU Foundation for the benefit of our community. The lease reflects our commitment to the partnership.”“The community recognised the need for the services Magnolia Place offers and rallied to bring it to life. The fit out of the premises was completed at almost no expense based on local providers’ and retailers’ generous donations of time, services and goods.“I’m excited that Magnolia Place is open and we’re beginning a new and positive journey with our Helensvale community.”

Magnolia Place offers a multi-service approach to domestic and family violence. 

Magnolia Place

Providing our communities with access to our spacesOur Centre Experience teams work with our Westfield Local Heroes and community partners, offering them spaces they can activate to connect with the community and create unique experiences in our Westfield Living Centres.Director Leasing and Retail Solutions, John Papagiannis said: “Our Centre Experience teams are always exploring new ways to partner with our Westfield Local Heroes and community partners to help them connect with their local communities. What are introduced as one-off community-led activations, often evolve into long-term, valued services due to the volume of positive feedback and engagement we receive from customers.”Upparel’s first physical storeWe partnered with Upparel, a textile upcycling company, to support the launch of its first physical store in Westfield Southland. We offered the start-up a vacant tenancy for three months.Upparel was listed as one of the 20 coolest retailers in Australia by Inside Retail in November 2020. It takes clothing, shoes and totes and either rehomes, repurposes or recycles the goods. We are also working with Upparel to collect and recycle old Westfield uniforms.The business started operating in 2020 and has already diverted almost 1.5 million items from landfill.Westfield Southland Centre Manager, Michael Croxford, said: “What Upparel is doing is really resonating with customers and they have plans to be even greener. If we can be a part of their story, supporting their connection with customers while they are building and refining the business, then that is a fantastic outcome for everyone.”ANON art exhibitionWhen a tenancy became available at Westfield Carindale, Centre Manager Matt Powis reached out to the Sunlight Centre (a 2018 Westfield Local Hero and 2019 Finalist) to bring the ANON art exhibition and store to life. It resulted in the charity’s most successful fundraising event ever.Matt said: “Every year the Sunlight Centre hosts an art auction with local professional artists donating all of the pieces. The catch is that the artists remain anonymous until after each piece is purchased.“We offered the Sunlight Centre a premium shop location during Westfield’s Week of Offers. The exhibition added unique vibrancy to the precinct and after TV advertising by the Sunlight Centre, their exposure to our local community was significant.“We offered the Sunlight Centre a premium shop location during Westfield’s Week of Offers. The exhibition added unique vibrancy to the precinct and after TV advertising by the Sunlight Centre, their exposure to our local community was significant.  “The Sunlight Centre offers free face-to-face crisis counselling and the exhibition raised critical funding for these services. It also initiated some important conversations and drew in new clients, highlighting the overall success of our partnership.”The Sunlight Centre is now considering a move into Westfield Carindale to offer free counselling to the community and our retail partners’ staff.

Providing our communities with access to our spaces

Our approach to engaging our people throughout 2020Despite the pressures of 2020, our people remained focused on delivering against Our Plan.We responded early and decisively to address the impacts of COVID-19 and promote the health and wellbeing of our people whilst maintaining business continuity.Each state and territory in Australia and New Zealand operated within different restrictions or alert levels throughout the year. Our teams demonstrated agility to adjust and re-adjust their resourcing levels and operations to meet these changing requirements.We supported our people’s experiences through lockdowns, stand by and remote working with an engagement plan.We leveraged our intranet, regular email communications from leaders, in particular our CEO, and adopted Microsoft Teams as a collaboration tool. Engagement tactics were designed to educate, connect and motivate our people, fulfilling the objective of supporting health, safety and wellbeing whilst providing business continuity.Our approach included:CEO updates to help interpret the rapidly changing operational requirements from governmentCEO updates about the business and industry initiatives as well as regular people focused ‘check ins’A comprehensive and updated Q&amp;A document to help leaders and our people make sense of the restrictions and requirements and have informed conversationsTips and guidance for maintaining physical / mental health and wellbeing during the pandemicIncreased support through our Employee Assistance Program on topics including domestic and family violence and mental healthTraining and guidance on ways to work with remote teams and new technologyFriday lunch time broadcasts by professional musicians that were enjoyed by our people and their families whilst working remotely.In addition to this strategy, we continued to engage our people to participate in employee representation groups. Our diversity and inclusion approach across seven working groups, our Allies who foster a culture of inclusion for members of our LGBTI+ community, and our People Champions, continued to be engaged throughout the year and support our people. Totalling 335 people, their participation represented 14 per cent of our total workforce.Large scale meetings were hosted virtually in 2020. Our CEO’s bi-annual “Team Talk”, an all-of-company update and team recognition session was held on Teams for the first time. The format showed that high levels of engagement could still be achieved remotely. This is a permanent change.In May 2020, our team at the Sydney Support Office commenced a safe and gradual return to the workplace. Our Westfield Living Centres continued to trade in line with local restrictions.Our COVID-Safe Workplace status enabled our people to return to work with confidence. For our combined success we know that as a business we work better when we are together, relying like any organisation on the energy that comes from spontaneous interactions.Our COVID-Safe work practices remain in place.

Our approach to engaging our people throughout 2020

Scentre Group included in 2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equality IndexScentre Group today announced it was one of 380 companies globally and one of ten in Australia to be included in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI). This is the second consecutive year the Group has been included in the index.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen said: “Our diversity and inclusion strategy is a key part of what drives our company culture and supports our vision to be the place where talent thrives. It’s pleasing to see we’ve been included in the 2021 Bloomberg GEI for the second year running because it demonstrates that our sustained focus is delivering improved results.“Being strategic in addressing gender equality within our workplace allows us to maintain strong employee engagement and retention, as well as improve our productivity and performance as a business. We look forward to maintaining this focus with our team and continuing to learn and improve.”The reference index measures gender equality across five pillars: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, sexual harassment policies, and pro-women brand. Scentre Group was included in this year’s index for scoring at or above a global threshold established by Bloomberg to reflect a high level of disclosure and overall performance across the framework’s five pillars.“The companies included in the 2021 GEI are expanding the ESG data universe to include gender-related data that investors are demanding today,” said Peter T. Grauer, Chairman of Bloomberg. “Their commitment to disclosure is making the business case for inclusion, and driving transparency in the markets.”

2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index

Scentre Group moves into leadership band with improved 2020 CDP scoreScentre Group has been recognised for its progress in environmental stewardship and disclosure by improving its 2020 CDP score to an A-, moving into the leadership band of the survey. The score recognises the Group’s climate-risk management approaches are consistent with current best practice.The global and Oceania average scores were ‘C’.Key success drivers in elevating the Group’s score include progress in Energy Efficiency, Emissions Reduction Initiatives and Value Chain Engagement.“Leading with a responsible business mindset goes hand-in-hand with our objective to deliver long-term sustainable returns for our securityholders and our strategy to create the places more people choose to come, more often for longer,” said Scentre Group’s Director of Design and Construction, Ian Irving.“Scentre Group continues to evolve our approach, consistent with our Sustainable Business Framework which includes our people, community, environmental impact and economic performance. In February this year we announced our commitment to Net Zero Emissions by 2030 across our wholly-owned portfolio.  In addition to this, in August we publicly pledged our commitment to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).“Our roadmap to achieve Net Zero Emissions includes a number of short, medium and long-term strategies that complement and build on each other. Our primary focus is on optimising the energy efficiency of our assets (so we use less energy) and supporting this with sourcing of renewable energy.“Our improved CDP score comes as encouraging news for our Westfield Living Centre asset teams as we maintain our momentum on key initiatives into 2021.”For more information about Scentre Group’s environmental impact and performance, please refer to The Group’s 2019 Responsible Business Report.The Group’s 2020 Responsible Business Report will be released at the end of Q1 2021.

Scentre Group moves into leadership band with improved 2020 CDP score

Scentre Group Named a Global Listed Development Sector Leader by GRESBEach year GRESB assesses and benchmarks the ESG performance of real assets worldwide. The GRESB Assessments are guided by what investors and the industry consider to be material issues in the sustainability performance of real asset investments and are aligned with international reporting frameworks, goals and emerging regulations.The GRESB Sector Leader Awards Program recognises real estate and infrastructure companies, funds and assets that have demonstrated outstanding leadership in sustainability.In 2020, GRESB introduced separate Management, Performance, and Development Components for the Real Estate Assessment. Scentre Group participates in the Standing Investment and Development aspect of the benchmark and the sector leadership relates to Development. For the period of the 2020 GRESB survey, our key development focus was Westfield Newmarket in Auckland, New Zealand.&quot;We are proud to recognize the 2020 Sector Leaders for their clear commitment and meaningful action to improve their ESG performance.” says Sander Paul van Tongeren, Managing Director at GRESB.  &quot;Your efforts continue to shape the future of sustainability leadership and play a critical role in accelerating the transition towards sustainable real assets.”Speaking about the sector leader recognition for Development, Scentre Group Director Design &amp; Construction, Ian Irving said: “We believe leading with a responsible business mindset goes hand in hand with Our Purpose; creating extraordinary places, connecting and enriching communities.“Our Sustainable Business Framework focuses on four key areas; our people, community, our environmental impact and economic performance and informs everything that we do.  The acknowledgement as a Global Listed Sector Leader for Development reinforces our commitment as a responsible, sustainable business and comes as welcomed recognition for our team.”Further to our sector leadership recognition for development, Scentre Group received an ‘A’ rating for public disclosure in the Standing Investment section of the 2020 GRESB survey.  This compared to a global average of C and peer average of B.More information about Scentre Group’s performance can be found in our annual Responsible Business Report.More information about GRESB can be found at GRESB.com.

Scentre Group Named a Global Listed Development Sector Leader by GRESB

Westfield Local Heroes 2020 Grant Recipients AnnouncedWestfield Living Centres across Australia and New Zealand have announced the Westfield Local Heroes grant recipients for 2020, as nominated and voted for by the local communities.Every year, Westfield Living Centres across Australia and New Zealand each award up to three, $10,000 grants to deserving individuals and their organisations who dedicate their time to positively impact the lives of others. The Westfield Local Hero grants are awarded to further support the important contributions they make in their communities.Earlier this year communities across Australia and New Zealand were called upon to submit nominations for everyday heroes they believe would benefit from the recognition before being put to a public vote. Over 140,000 votes were received from across the community for all finalists.
Speaking to the success of the 2020 Westfield Local Heroes program, Scentre Group National Community Experience Manager Pam Wilson said:“Through the Westfield Local Heroes program, we continue to recognise and reward
everyday people doing extraordinary things within our communities. We are thrilled to be able to support the incredible work they are doing every day and it’s with great pleasure that we announce our 2020 Westfield Local Heroes grant recipients.”“We thank our customers for casting their votes and helping determine our 2020 Westfield Local Heroes across our centres.”
The 2020 Westfield Local Heroes program ran across 42 Westfield centres throughout Australia and New Zealand, with 126 grants and a total of $1.26M awarded. The program applies to a variety of sectors, including business, sport, government, education, sports, welfare, environment, community and not-for-profit. The Local Heroes program will also return in February 2021.Launched in 2018, the Westfield Local Heroes program discovers and celebrates individuals and their organisations whose work or activities create positive benefit for others in one or more of the following ways: nurturing a sense of belonging and inclusion, helping in times of community crisis, building community resilience, promoting positive health and wellbeing, improving access to community services and groups, and protecting the local environment. Over $3.6m has been donated to these groups and services in the last three years.

Westfield Local Heroes 2020 Grant Recipients Announced

Scentre Group supports the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial DisclosuresAs a long-term owner and manager of real estate, we acknowledge the impacts and financial risks associated with climate change and are actively exploring and implementing initiatives to improve the resilience and efficiency of our Westfield Living Centres.We regularly assess the financial, regulatory and physical risks associated with climate change and, earlier this year we set a target of Net Zero Scope 1 and 2 Emissions by 2030 across our wholly-owned Westfield Living Centre portfolio. This target builds on our broader organisational approach to the management and assessment of climate-related risks.Since Scentre Group was established in 2014, we have reduced our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions each year, at the same time as growing annual customer visits and expanding our portfolio GLA.Since 2018, we have been disclosing our performance against the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in annual investor surveys including the Carbon Disclosure Project and have now become a formal public supporter of TCFD.TCFD is an industry-led taskforce that was developed to make recommendations that help companies understand what information investors, lenders and insurance underwriters want with respect to climate-related financial disclosures. In 2017, TCFD released 11 recommendations for disclosure and we have committed to aligning our climate-related disclosures with these recommendations.While these disclosures are voluntary, we recognise that TCFD is the most widely adopted best practice standard for disclosure of climate risks and is an important tool for the investment community in assessing climate and financial risk.You can read more about our broader organisational approach to the management and assessment of climate related risks on pages 36 – 38 in our type: asset-hyperlink id: 29eeB7k1MJ6oOmnh2QIhrM.

Scentre Group supports the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures

Scentre Group Reports Half Year Operating Earnings of $361 millionScentre Group (ASX: SCG) today released its results for the six months to 30 June 2020 with Operating Earnings of $361 million (6.94 cents per security) and Funds From Operations (“FFO”) of $362 million (6.96 cents per security).The Statutory result for the six-month period was a loss of ($3,613) million. The Statutory result includes an unrealised non-cash reduction in property valuations of ($4,079) million.Operating Earnings, FFO and the Statutory result are each after expensing an Expected Credit Charge (ECC) of $(232) million related to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.During the six-month period, the Group achieved gross cash inflow of $1,059 million and a net operating cash surplus (after interest, overheads and tax) of $261 million.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen said: “I am very proud of our team, particularly how we responded and adapted to the significant changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results, including the ability to generate an operating cash surplus, demonstrate the long-term resilience of our business.“A fundamental strength of our business is the strategic location of the Group’s network of 42 Westfield Living Centres. Our centres are in close proximity to the most densely populated urban areas with more than 16 million people living within a 30-minute drive of one of our centres.“We remained focussed on providing our customers with the ability to continually meet their needs throughout the period. We did this by remaining open as well as implementing, and communicating, the highest standards of health and safety protocols.“As customers are returning to our centres, more than 93% of retail stores are open across the portfolio (excluding our Victorian centres). Portfolio occupancy was 98.8% at the end of June 2020.“We accelerated strategic initiatives such as Westfield Direct and Westfield Plus, leveraging the convergence between physical and digital, to facilitate customers connecting and interacting with our retail partners beyond the traditional physical interaction.“We launched Westfield Plus, our membership customer engagement platform, at Westfield Newmarket in New Zealand in late 2019 and recently introduced the program in Australia. We now have more than 500,000 members on Westfield Plus and this continues to grow.“At the onset of the pandemic, we acted quickly to secure additional funding, ensuring we are in a strong financial position to see the Group through and beyond the volatile period.”So far this year, the Group raised or extended $5.8 billion of additional funding, including $3.4 billion of bank facilities and $2.4 billion of long-term bonds. The Group currently has available liquidity of $4.4 billion, sufficient to cover all maturities to January 2023.Interest cover for the period was 3.6 times and balance sheet gearing at 30 June 2020 was 38.4%.“We led the development of a voluntary code of conduct which was designed to target appropriate assistance and support to small and medium sized retailers (SMEs) during the pandemic. The Code of Conduct (the Code) was mandated by governments throughout Australia and we voluntarily applied these principles to conversations with our New Zealand SME retailers,” Mr Allen said.“We acknowledge that this has been a difficult time for our customers and our retail partners.  We have supported our retail partners throughout this period on a case-by-case basis. We have done this without receiving financial assistance from Government.“The shopping centre industry has provided over $1.6 billion of support for retailers during the pandemic. Our industry is unique in that it has provided, and self-funded, a level of financial support beyond any other industry as well as most government pandemic support packages.“We have agreed arrangements with 2,438 of our 3,600 retail partners, including 1,624 SME retail partners.“Importantly, the structure of our leases with our retail partners has not changed and remains based on the mutual agreement to pay a fixed rent.”SME retail partners represent approximately 30% of the Group’s rental income. Under the SME Code, SMEs are able to reduce the amount of cash rent payable commensurate with the decline in sales they may have experienced during the pandemic and post pandemic (“recovery”) period.For the six-month period, the Group collected 70% of gross rental billings and for the months of June and July 2020, gross rental billings collections were over 80%. The gross rental billings used in calculating these collection rates have not been adjusted for the impact of applying the Code and its impact in reducing the actual amount of cash rent collectible during the period.In-store sales for our retail partners were impacted by the pandemic and the associated restrictions on people movement. In-store sales for the retail partners that traded throughout the six-month period were 8.1% lower compared to the previous corresponding six-month period in 2019. Specialty in-store sales were 12.1% lower for the six-month period compared to the previous corresponding period.During the half year, we continued to progress the projects that were already underway at Westfield Doncaster (Victoria), Westfield Belconnen (ACT) and Westfield Hornsby (NSW). The $50 million project at Westfield Carindale (Queensland) will complete in September 2020.The Group continues to implement initiatives that support our strategy to operate as a responsible, sustainable business. During the half, we announced our target to achieve Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2030. The Group recently committed to the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).Mr Allen said: “The underlying fundamentals of the Group’s business remain strong and the business is well positioned to deliver long-term sustainable returns for securityholders through economic cycles.“We have a great team of people who are customer obsessed and I am confident that we will continue to be agile in adapting to the inevitable uncertainties during these times.“We own and operate major essential social infrastructure in the best locations close to where people live. We will continue our focus on further developing strategic initiatives that enhance our deep knowledge, relationship and engagement with our customers to deliver what our customers want.”As previously announced the Group will not be providing earnings or distribution guidance.

Scentre Group Reports Half Year Operating Earnings of $361 million

Major LED upgrade across our Victorian centresVictorian LED lighting upgrade a community and sustainability silver lining amidst the disruptive impacts of COVID-19.Upgrading old lighting technology with light emitting diodes or LEDs is a given for the overwhelming majority of commercial retrofits or upgrades. Using as little as 10 per cent of the energy of older lighting products, LEDs are a more environmentally acceptable and cost-effective choice. They also last longer and can be fitted with sensors and control technologies. Together, these factors put them high up on the wishlist of most facilities managers.This was certainly the case for Scentre Group Regional Facilities Manager in Victoria, Oliver Madden. He says he has long wanted to replace the halogen lighting of car parks, loading docks and back-of-house areas in centres, but because it is a challenging task while the centres are fully operational, the timing had never been right.“While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented so many challenges for us all and is not what any of us would have wanted. Yet, when the government and health restrictions were first announced we saw a unique opportunity to undertake a largescale LED upgrade project. It was a proactive improvement our team could be working on while our centres were quieter than usual,” he explains.“We worked closely with key decision-makers in the business to make sure the proposed fixtures and fittings provided the right lux levels for the upgrade,” he says.Westfield Doncaster was the first centre selected for the LED upgrade. “Over the course of a few weeks we successfully replaced around 2,800 fixtures and fittings at Doncaster and had initiated similar projects at Westfield Geelong and Westfield Airport West. Those two have now been completed and Westfield Fountain Gate is currently underway,” Oliver continues.Previously, the lighting in these areas only had two settings: on or off. Now it is fully responsive.“Due to their in-built motion sensors, the lighting only comes on fully when it’s needed. We have programmed the lights to drop to between 30 per cent and 50 per cent after 10 minutes of no movement, depending on their location. Then, after 30 minutes of no movement, they either drop down to 10 per cent or turn off completely.”Current modelling shows that when all projects are complete, the energy saving will be around six million kw/h per year or equivalent to the energy required to run over 1,000 four-person family households in Victoria for a year [1].Given the projected energy savings, the cost savings are also expected to be significant and thanks to the Victorian Government’s Energy Efficiency Target (VEET) scheme, the upgrades have come at little cost to the business.Feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Retailers at Westfield Airport West have commented that the centre is much lighter and brighter; a more appealing place to be.But the most notable feedback doesn’t come from employees, retailers or customers, it comes from the broader community.Westfield Doncaster carpark before the LED upgradeWestfield Doncaster carpark after the LED upgradeAntony Roberts is the Retail Manager at Westfield Doncaster. He says the LED upgrade of the centre’s car park has helped address concerns of local residents.“The always-on lighting in our five-storey car park has been the subject of complaints by some residents in a nearby residential tower block,” he says.“Although the tower block was built after the car park, we have been looking for a cost-effective solution that would allow us to address the residents’ concerns while still providing adequate and safe lighting in our car park.”To address this, Oliver sourced lights that were individually controlled by a motion sensor and timer. These lights are only illuminated when needed, and for the ones closest to the residential tower, they have been programmed to switch off completely when not being used.“Feedback from the tower owners’ corporation has been overwhelmingly positive and has confirmed this has solved the problem completely. It&#39;s a win-win-win, we’ve fixed a community issue, the car parks present better than ever and the efficiencies are exactly what we need to reduce our costs and environmental footprint,” says Antony.Both Antony and Oliver are very proud of the LED upgrades and are keen to credit the whole team. “It’s always wonderful to see everyone pulling together to get a huge project like this across the line,” he says.[1] https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/benchmark

Major LED upgrade across our Victorian centres

Organics waste diversion closes the loopThe team at Westfield Carousel has closed the loop on tonnes of valuable, nutrient-rich food waste, transforming it into high-grade compost that is being offered free-of- charge to retail tenants, centre employees and local community groups, to boost the fertility of their own gardens.Westfield Carousel’s Facilities Manager, Kim Madden, was involved in working out how to manage the organics waste stream alongside our waste management company, Veolia.“Veolia introduced us to Write Solutions, a specialised organics diversion firm who helped us pilot a solution to manage our food waste in the centre,” she says.The project started with a volunteer trial of about five retailers who were passionate about better managing food waste. They worked closely with facilities management, the cleaning team and Write Solutions to solve teething issues and work out bin systems.“During the pilot, the amount of food waste we were able to divert from general waste doubled from seven tonnes in November 2019 to an average of over 14 tonnes per month between December 2019 and March 2020,” Kim says.“We now expect these numbers to continue to increase as we roll the solution out centre-wide.”In addition to all organic waste, such as meat and vegetables, being diverted into special bins at the centre’s fruit and veg retailers, coffee shops, juice bars and food outlets, Kim says the leftovers are captured too.“The enthusiasm of the cleaning team has been so inspiring,” she continues. “There has been no resistance to scraping plates or moving bins between waste rooms and the docks. They have made the process so easy. From the start their attitude was, ‘Let&#39;s get this done,’ which was fantastic. Retailers who had heard about the project were approaching us to ask if they could get involved too.”Westfield Carousel’s cleaning team is led by Betty Larsen, who says she has enjoyed the whole process so far. “One of my responsibilities is recording waste growth and suggesting ideas for improvement,” she says.“Increasing food waste has been concerning me for a while so I was very keen to help implement a system to manage this more efficiently.”Betty helped with the logistics and spent a lot of time educating retailers and cleaners about contamination. “We had some fun, placing smiley stickers on a “good” bin that had no contamination and we also trained cleaners to manage incorrectly placed organics waste,” she continues.“I’m happy to be contributing to the sustainability of the centre and our contribution will only get bigger as the solution gets rolled out across the whole centre.”Centre Manager, Maeve Foley, says the results have been nothing short of amazing. “Sustainability is something we are increasingly passionate about. Big changes can start with small incremental adjustments and awareness raising,” she says.“Benefits for the business include considerable cost savings, because it is much cheaper to recycle organics, as opposed to sending it to landfill; and our people and the community benefit because we offer the resulting compost to retailers, employees and local schools and charity organisations with veggie gardens.”The Curtin University Student Guild makes use of the centre’s organic waste to produce a soil conditioner which they use on their garden.Curtin University Student Guild Executive Chef, Scott Biswell, says: “Our plants are thriving and are healthier than ever. For our community it is very satisfying to know that we have diverted all that waste from landfill and that we are making a meaningful contribution to a sustainable future.”Maeve says: “We can’t underestimate the impact of the changes we’re making for future generations; even small steps make a difference. Last year I received a letter from a nine-year-old customer who wanted to know about recycling at the centre. I invited her to come for a tour and it was amazing to see the dedication and passion in someone so young. I still have her letter beside my computer today as a reminder of our responsibility as a large business with a substantial environmental footprint.”

Organics waste diversion closes the loop

Shiny shoes help connect and enrich our community at Westfield ChermsideWhen Lauren Cahill, Co-Founder and chief shoe designer of Petit Barcelona, was nominated as a Westfield Local Hero in 2019, little did she know she’d soon be connecting with new customers and growing her brand through a newly-leased space at Westfield Chermside.Lauren was voted as a Westfield Local Hero because of her work raising money for the Children’s Tumour Foundation of Australia (CTF Australia), the only charity in the country that supports children and their families with the little-known genetic disorder, neurofibromatosis (NF).The first time Lauren heard of NF was when a young girl with a tumour on her brain stem came into her Camp Hill Marketplace shop. Young Emme touched Lauren’s heart and, on the spur of the moment, she decided to design a brand-new shoe in her honour, and donate all profits from the sale of the special shoes to NF Australia.Now, girls all over Brisbane (and the world thanks to Petit Barcelona’s online store), are wearing the beautiful hand-made rose mocha glitter sandals called Emme’s Shoes. Through this small, simple act, Lauren has raised funds, awareness and compassion for NF, which can be both debilitating and disfiguring.When trying on the shoes, Lauren says mothers often take the opportunity to have a conversation with their daughters about compassion.“They talk about Emme, about her illness, and that their contribution is making a difference. That they are helping others, through the act of giving,” says Lauren.Westfield Local Heroes are nominated and voted for by their communities, with the three top finalists at each Westfield centre awarded a $10,000 grant for their affiliated organisation. In Lauren’s case the grant went to CTF Australia.Lauren says winning the nomination made her cry with happiness. She was delighted by the community support, which she says is like, “two gigantic arms wrapping themselves around Emme and her family.” But the ripple effect of Lauren’s altruism, and the exposure Petit Barcelona received from the Westfield Local Heroes program, has had wonderful knock-on benefits for her business too.Originally launching as an online store in 2016, Petit Barcelona then opened a flagship store in the Camp Hill Marketplace in Brisbane. The business has gone from strength to strength ever since, so much so that when a short-term casual lease came up in a prime spot at Westfield Chermside, between May and July 2020, Lauren was quick to sign up.Scentre Group BrandSpace sales executive, Maddy Narramore, was responsible for supporting Lauren to open the pop-up store. She says that Lauren’s story of innovative small business owner to pop-up retail tenant exemplifies Scentre Group’s ongoing strategy to create the places more people want to visit, more often.“The success story of Petit Barcelona, what the business has done for a local charity and the gorgeous products they are now offering customers at Westfield Chermside, perfectly demonstrates Scentre Group’s focus on partnering with local businesses, building community and investing in local leaders,” Maddy says.Maddy’s opinion is echoed by Scentre Group BrandSpace Sales Manager, Lauren Walls, who says she is incredibly proud to offer such a suitable opportunity to such a worthy local business.“I think there can be a tendency to associate Westfield with just big-name brands and there is a perception that we don’t offer much to local businesses, especially when it comes to leasing,” she says.“This couldn’t be more wrong. We have a big focus on connecting with local businesses offering interesting, innovative products. It’s mutually beneficial, of course. We can help them build their brand and give them exposure to new customers, and they help our centres live up to their promise of being extraordinary places that connect and enrich communities.”Scentre Group National Community Experience Manager, Pam Wilson, says Petit Barcelona’s story weaves together all the different elements of the company’s national community recognition and award strategy.“Westfield Local Heroes is, at its heart, a community recognition program designed to discover and celebrate those people who are building social wellbeing and harmony in their communities. The program essentially brings Scentre Group’s purpose to life and offers a deep recognition that our centres are more than just shopping hubs, they are lifestyle destinations that genuinely serve our local communities,” she says.

Shiny shoes help connect and enrich our community at Westfield Chermside

Scentre Group awarded Silver at the 2020 AWEI LGBTQ Inclusion AwardsWe are proud to have been recognised as a Silver Employer at the 2020 AWEI LGBTQ Inclusion Awards.Typically these awards are unveiled at a luncheon ceremony but this year the news was shared online.LGBTQ Executive Sponsor Phil McAveety said: “We have stepped up our recognition from Bronze to Silver this year which is fantastic and valued external recognition of the continued work we’re doing to create a welcoming, safe workplace that embraces all of our people. To be the place for talent to thrive, every one of us must feel comfortable to bring our whole self to work and have access to the support they need.”Due to gathering restrictions this year’s awards were announced via Zoom but the award celebration lunch, which is a great opportunity to celebrate with employers across Australia helping to create inclusive workplaces, will be held later this year.The AWEI stands as the definitive national benchmark on LGBTQ workplace inclusion and with only 19 organisations awarded Silver Employer status, we are in good company alongside organisations such as Westpac, the University of Sydney and Qantas Airways.Chris Zerial, LGBTQ Lead, says: “Since our first AWEI submission four years ago, we have continued on our journey of diversity and inclusion and every year our AWEI submissions have received a higher and higher score in line with our culture becoming more and more inclusive and supportive. To be recognised as a Silver Employer is great achievement.“This year the AWEI saw a significant shift in best practice across all employers as participation increases and organisations raise the bar and do more and new things to include and support their people. That’s a really exciting and pleasing outcome for the LGBTQ community at large.”To achieve an AWEI award, an organisation must make an annual submission, showcasing the work done to be an LGBTQ inclusive workplace, as well as invite all team members to complete the AWEI Survey which identifies the impact of initiatives on organisational culture – all of which we did.Chris concludes, “I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to provide us their feedback through the AWEI Survey. It’s really important as your feedback is what will guide our plans for the coming year, to ensure we are focused on what’s important to our people as we continue to on journey of inclusion.”

Scentre Group awarded Silver at the 2020 AWEI LGBTQ Inclusion Awards

Purchasing to power Indigenous businessesThe concept of supplier diversity promotes the purchase of goods and services from economically excluded and marginalised groups by the world’s largest buyers, such as governments and corporations. The idea is to deliberately choose a supplier not just because it’s the one you’ve always used, or because it’s the cheapest, but because you want to take into account the social impact your dollar spend will have on the business you choose.In Australia, the social enterprise Supply Nation makes this easier for organisations by working alongside procurement teams to embed supplier diversity into their organisations. Their particular focus is to leverage spend with Australian Indigenous-owned businesses.“Supply Nation’s work is important because it provides employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (ATSI) businesses. If we invest within those organisations, they’ll in turn support and employ others from their community,” says Scentre Group Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group Chair, Matthew Fisk.A paper, commissioned by Supply Nation in 2018, reports that ATSI businesses are a hundred times more likely to employ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, and also that for every $1 spent with a certified Indigenous business, $4.41 of social value is generated. [1]“As a member of Supply Nation, Scentre Group has access to the largest directory of verified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses in the country. This currently includes over 2,000 Indigenous suppliers, across construction, facilities management, professional services and catering supplies, and it’s growing year on year,” continues Matthew.“As a vertically integrated business that designs, builds, markets and operates our portfolio of 37 Westfield Living Centres in Australia, we are a large purchaser of goods and services. This presents a clear opportunity to focus our buying power towards ATSI businesses, and in our 2019-21 Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) [insert hyperlink] we committed to establishing targets for our spend on Supply Nation listed businesses.”This allows Scentre Group to simultaneously build a great business partnership that delivers on our procurement needs, while also supporting the traditionally underutilised Indigenous business sector.Promoting the Supply Nation directory of Indigenous businesses within Scentre Group is a high-priority aim of Scentre Group’s RAP and will be undertaken through internal communications channels that include the company intranet, Supply Nation log-on page, emails and newsletters, and posters displayed at all assets.Scentre Group&#39;s Matt Fisk and Shusai owner and Director, Tim ReillyBuilding solid partnerships with Indigenous businesses
Shusai is a Supply Nation accredited company and a long-standing Scentre Group partner. As a provider of traffic management services and security, Shusai has been an essential subcontractor on many of our major development projects in New South Wales in recent years, including Westfield Sydney, Westfield Warringah Mall and Westfield Kotara.“Our relationship with Shusai is based on the fantastic, reliable services they always provide us with. They are a trusted and highly-regarded business partner of ours. The fact that they are an Indigenous-owned business is an important benefit that adds another significant dimension to our relationship,” says Scentre Group Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group Chair, Matthew Fisk.Tim Reilly owner and Director from Shusai also deeply values the partnership. “As our partnership grows with Scentre Group so does our employment,” he says.“With Indigenous employees from north of Kempsey to west of Penrith, all our staff enjoy working with Scentre group as they are helpful and respectful. Over the last three years, five of our Indigenous employees have bought their own land and houses. We are looking forward to keeping our partnership with Scentre group for many years to come.”[1] The Sleeping Giant Social Return on Investment Report commissioned by Supply Nation and published 2018.

Purchasing to power Indigenous businesses

Westfield Burwood saves water the equivalent of eight Olympic-sized swimming pools in 2019Burwood’s Facilities Management team gets smart with a water meter to help reduce consumption“It’s great when we can align and work with our retail partners on what we are working so hard to achieve.”
Aaron Brown, Facilities Manager, Westfield BurwoodWith a mandate to continuously improve the performance and efficiency of each of our 42 Westfield Living Centres across Australia and New Zealand, our facilities management teams are focused on driving energy efficiency, improving waste diversion from landfill and reducing water use.So, when taking on a new role in the facilities management team at Westfield Burwood, Facilities Manager Aaron Brown says it was critical for him to understand the performance of the centre in each of these three areas.“Because I was new to the role and didn’t know the site very well, the first thing I did was to work closely with my colleagues to better understand where the key infrastructure was.”It soon became clear that the main problem was a lack of visibility over water usage. “It was incredibly hard to get a sense of how much water we were using at any one time because there was a three-month delay between using the water and the bill coming through,” Aaron continues.From a management perspective, this made it virtually impossible to react quickly to situations where excess water was being used, so Aaron decided to install a smart meter so he could get more accurate and timely usage data.“I approached Sydney Water to get a better understanding of what types of smart meter solutions were out there, and they put me in touch with their own smart meter supplier called Water Group. They devised a really cost-effective solution, which we implemented in February 2019,” he says.L-R Facilities Coordinator Arianne Villanueva, Assistant Facilities Manager Elias Nahlous and Facilities Manager, Aaron Brown at Westfield BurwoodThe smart meter was installed at Westfield Burwood’s single water feed-in point and was incredibly cost effective but also incredibly impactful. “These days, I can see exactly how much water we are using on a cloud-based application,” Aaron says.“By doing this we have reduced our information delay from three months to 15 minutes!”By combining the smart meter data with a series of audits from major water users, including car washes, bathroom amenities and cooling towers, Aaron’s team was able to identify a series of problems that needed to be fixed.“Getting access to our retail partner’s cooling towers was a major coup for us because in about four of them we noticed a float issue, which means that water is constantly running,” explains Aaron.“Addressing this led to the biggest ‘wow’ moments - we were literally seeing major reductions in water consumption overnight.”And the results speak for themselves. The team was able to save 20 million litres of water, or a 16% reduction in water consumption compared with last year. Not only is this the equivalent of saving eight Olympic-sized swimming pools, it also provided cost savings to the business.In addition to excellent technical skills and knowledge, Aaron says an ability to educate, communicate and influence retail partners and other stakeholders was vital to the team’s success.“It is so important for all of us to understand why water savings are important. Not just the financial impact, but the broader context of drought too,” he says.“Our persistence really paid off and we ended up with a much better result than we had anticipated.”

Westfield Burwood saves water the equivalent of eight Olympic-sized swimming pools in 2019

Three in a row - recognised again as an Employer of Choice for Gender EqualityIn recognition of the significant progress we’ve made on gender equality, we’re proud to again be recognised and publicly endorsed by the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality. It’s the third time we’ve received this citation and our current endorsement extends to 2021.Our CEO Peter Allen said: “I’m incredibly proud that Scentre Group has once again been publicly endorsed as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality and now for an extended period. This acknowledges the work we have done right across the organisation to build a culture that is consistent with our aspiration to be ‘the place where talent thrives’.“Our focus on gender equity ensures we drive strong employee engagement and retention, improving our productivity and business performance.“Whilst we are so pleased to receive this citation, we know we have more to do to ensure gender equity is full integrated into our decision-making, development planning and talent acquisition.“We have a range of initiatives underway as part of our Gender Equity Strategy to ensure we continue to deliver against our target of 40% women, 40% men and 20% of either gender at all levels of the organisation.“I’m proud to say that all of our people today are paid fairly and equitably without any gender bias, we embrace flexible working and encourage everyone to bring their whole self to work.“We also recently updated our parental leave policy to help our parents ‘share the care’.”

Three in a row - recognised again as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality

A message from our Chairman and CEODear SecurityholderWe are pleased to report our financial performance for the year was strong with Funds from Operations (FFO) growing by 3.2% on a pro forma basis (1) and distributions growing by 2.0%, both in line with forecast.We have delivered what we said we would because we have remained focused on our customers and curated our offer to keep pace with their changing expectations.Operating Earnings – the Group’s FFO excluding Project Income – was $1.287 billion for the 12-month period, up 1.0% per security or 3.6% on a pro forma basis.The strength of our portfolio and source of competitive advantage for our leading operating platform of 42 Westfield Living Centres is executing a customer focussed strategy and consistently delivering results.Our plan and strategic objective is to create the places more people choose to come, more often, for longer.
Annual customer visits increased by more than 12 million during 2019 to over 548 million and our occupancy remains high at 99.3%. We are the leading platform in Australia and New Zealand for retailers and brands to interact with consumers.Retail partner in-store sales within our portfolio grew by $1 billion during the year to $25 billion. This represents more than 7.5% of total retail sales in Australia. We have 3,600 brands represented in more than 12,000 outlets across our portfolio. The average annual specialty in-store sales within our portfolio is $1,525 million per store.
By listening and acting on what our customers want we have actively curated the mix within our portfolio.During the year we introduced 344 new brands to our portfolio and 279 existing brands grew their store network with us.In recent years we have seen consumers shift their preferences towards experiential retail and consume on-site. Today, 43% of the stores in our portfolio are experienced based. Customers want a seamless shopping experience. We continue to see increased investment in click and collect as retailers seek to optimise their store networks and close proximity to customers.We view this as an opportunity and believe that physical retail is, and will remain, a central part of the retail ecosystem – key to retailers’ sales and distribution strategy. This is based on the fact that well-located high-quality physical retail, like our portfolio, is the most cost-efficient means for a brand to engage with the customer. It is also difficult to replicate.We continue to innovate in how we engage with our customer to leverage these opportunities. New technologies are providing more opportunities to enhance our direct engagement with the consumer. For example, as part of the launch of Westfield Newmarket, we developed and launched Westfield Plus, a mobile app based membership program. More than 200,000 customers in New Zealand have downloaded the app.The Group’s completion of the NZD790 million Westfield Newmarket development on time was a highlight of the year, creating the leading lifestyle and fashion destination in New Zealand.We continue to reinvest in the portfolio and have commenced a number of projects that will improve the offer and experience for our customers. This includes commencing the $50 million project at Westfield Carindale which includes a new David Jones and introduction of Kmart; the $55 million dining and entertainment precinct at Westfield Mt Druitt adding 12 new rooftop restaurants as well as $89 million of special projects including the opening of Bradley Street dining precinct at Westfield Woden and the expansion and refurbishment of the dining precinct at Westfield Doncaster.Capital management continues to be a priority for the Group.In 2019 we released $2.1 billion of capital through the divestment of the Sydney Office Towers for $1.52 billion and the joint venturing of Westfield Burwood for $575 million. The capital released from these transactions is being redeployed into our business.During the year we acquired a 50% interest in Westfield Booragoon in Perth for $570 million, becoming the long-term manager and developer for that centre. Westfield Booragoon’s strategic location and high quality make this acquisition consistent with our strategy. We also commenced our security buy-back program of up to $800 million and to date have purchased $304 million securities.The Group’s financial position remains strong with FFO to Debt of 10.3% and interest cover of 3.6 times. Our balance sheet gearing is 33% at 31 December 2019. Our balance sheet does not ascribe any value to the Group’s unique operating platform, which generates more than $215 million equivalent to 16% of our FFO. The Group has A grade credit ratings from S&amp;P, Fitch and Moody’s. We continue to maintain high levels of liquidity with undrawn committed facilities and cash totalling $1.8 billion.Our long-term objective to create sustainable returns for our securityholders is consistent with our approach to be a responsible, sustainable business. Our Sustainable Business Framework is built on four pillars – our communities, our people, our environmental impact and our economic performance.Our Westfield Living Centres are regarded as valued social infrastructure and at times of emergencies, are regarded by local authorities as places of refuge and shelter. Whilst our assets were not directly impacted by Australia’s recent bushfire emergencies, we believe we have a role to play in the nation’s recovery process. We partnered with the Salvation Army as part of our response to the bushfires by way of a cash donation of $500,000 and will provide significant in-kind support through our digital screen and media networks across our platform to expand the reach of their message and facilitate further fundraising.Creating a safe, healthy, diverse and inclusive workplace where talent thrives is the focus of our people strategy. We were pleased to have sustained a high employee engagement rate of 84% in our most recent engagement survey, which places us in the top 2% of companies globally. We have recently been included in the 2020 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index acknowledging our focus on talent, diversity and inclusion in a global peer group.We are committed to operating an efficient and resilient business for the long-term.We have existing environmental targets for emissions intensity, waste and recycling that our teams are making progress on. In addition to this, the Group today announced it will target net zero emissions across our wholly-owned portfolio by 2030. Work will continue in FY20 to align initiatives to our primary environmental target.
Full highlights and performance data across our four pillars will be disclosed in our standalone Responsible Business report at the end of the first quarter.As we look to the year ahead, the Group forecasts Operating Earnings for the 12 months ending 31 December 2020 to be between 24.75 and 24.80 cents per security. This would represent growth, on a pro forma basis, of approximately 3.1%.The Group forecasts to achieve Project Income (after tax) of approximately $28 million. This is a function of the amount of project work currently underway on behalf of external parties. The Group forecasts FFO for the 12 months ending 31 December 2020 of approximately 25.30 cents per security. This would represent growth, on a pro forma basis, of approximately 0.7%. These forecasts do not take into account the expected positive impact of completing the remainder of the up to $800 million security buy-back program. The distribution for 2020 is forecast to be 23.28 cents per security, an increase of 3%. In future years distributions are expected to grow in line with growth in Operating Earnings.We would like to thank our people for their commitment to our customers during 2019 and for their contribution to this year’s results. The Board, management and our people are excited about the future of our business and our ability to listen and respond to rapidly changing customer expectations.To be successful in today’s market, you need to have your eye firmly on your customer and stay close to their changing needs and preferences. Our ability to understand what customers want has secured a strong position for our business. Our proposition is to deliver long-term sustainable returns through economic cycles.
We will continue to adapt, grow earnings and distribution and deliver on Our Purpose: creating extraordinary places, connecting and enriching communities.Brian Schwartz AM, Chairman
Peter Allen, Chief Executive Officer
(i)  Pro forma FFO adjusts for the transactions completed during the year, including the sale of the Sydney Office towers for $1.52 billion in June 2019, the 50% joint venture of Westfield Burwood for $575 million also in June, the acquisition of 50% of Westfield Booragoon for $570 million in December and the $304 million of securities bought back under the 2019 buy-back program as at 31 December 2019.

A message from our Chairman and CEO

Scentre Group to Target Net Zero Emissions by 2030Scentre Group has today announced it will pursue a net zero emissions target by 2030 across its wholly-owned portfolio of Westfield Living Centres. This builds on the company’s existing environmental targets, energy efficiency initiatives and targeted renewable energy generation and investment opportunities.The announcement supports Scentre Group’s commitment to delivering long-term sustainable returns through economic cycles and is in line with the company’s Sustainable Business Framework which includes community, people, environmental and economic performance.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen said: “We are committed to ensuring we have an efficient and resilient long-term business that balances the needs of our stakeholders. As part of this commitment the Group considers net zero emissions by 2030 as a natural evolution of the environmental pillar of our Sustainable Business Framework. Work will continue in 2020 to align existing and new energy efficiency and renewable initiatives to this target and ensure our pathway informs capital investment decisions.“Since the establishment of Scentre Group we have reduced our electricity use every year. Our continued reduction in energy use and emissions intensity across the portfolio whilst managing increased customer demand is evidence that our centre management teams are effectively using our energy monitoring tools and digital platforms to make decisions and drive energy efficiency on a daily basis.”During 2019, Scentre Group generated approximately nine Gigawatt hours (GWh) from solar installations across five of its Westfield Living Centres – Westfield Marion, Westfield Plenty Valley, Westfield Carousel, Westfield Kotara and Westfield Coomera.  The Group continues to invest in solar generation across our assets.Scentre Group’s average NABERS portfolio rating is 4.13 against a 2025 target of 4.5. With efficient deployment of capital, increased adoption of technology, continued focus on energy efficiency of existing assets via our national energy efficiency framework as well as waste and recycling initiatives, we will continue to reduce our environmental footprint.Full highlights and performance data will be presented in our standalone Responsible Business report at the end of the first quarter 2020.

Scentre Group to Target Net Zero Emissions by 2030

Transforming organic waste into a valuable commodityAs a passionate advocate for sustainable waste management, Shaun Loseby, Assistant Facilities Manager at Westfield Sydney, was only too pleased to take on the responsibility for managing waste at the centre. One of his first initiatives has led to an incredible increase in food organics being diverted from landfill to facilities where they are transformed into high-quality compost and animal feed.A key motivating factor for choosing food organics as the first stream to target for diversion was the fact that the centre’s waste contractor was targeting dry general solid waste for off-site processing.“When I thought about how to make this waste stream dry, it was clear that targeting food waste fit the bill,” he explains. “That’s what started me out on the food organics diversion journey.”According to Shaun, a particular challenge for the centre is that much of the organic waste is produced by small food retailers.“In terms of separating out organics, we are essentially reliant on our food retailers doing the right thing, but it can be difficult for them because they don’t always have the space to have separate bins for all the different waste streams,” he says.Realising he needed to make life as easy as possible for the centre’s retail partners, Shaun sourced special organics bins designed for use by businesses. He also worked with the centre’s cleaning team to employ a new team member whom he refers to as the centre’s “Organics Hero.”“Because you can’t have organic waste sitting around for too long, the sole purpose of our Organics Hero is to manage these bins. They collect, replace, empty and clean the organics bins twice a day from each of the retailers. It’s a simple system but it works well.“Between January and September 2019, we diverted around four tonnes of organics per month from landfill. As soon as the program rolled out across all retailers from 1 October 2019, the initial diversion of more than 17 tonnes jumped to 24 tonnes by November. In December it was 26 tonnes. This represents a notable reduction in our general waste going to landfill,” he says.“I had the feeling it would be successful, but I didn’t think it would be this successful. It’s incredibly rewarding to see such a big impact so quickly. It is also gratifying to have positive feedback from our retail partners, many of whom are asking for ideas about how they can better recycle other waste streams. In fact, we’ve seen a jump in our total recycled waste numbers, so it’s definitely got the ball rolling. We’re going to capitalise on this enthusiasm and, in collaboration with SUEZ, increase our education efforts and improve our signage too.”Although Shaun was leading the project, he is very keen to point out that it was very much a team effort. “I couldn’t have done it without the support and enthusiasm of our retail partners, SUEZ, our cleaning contractor and particularly the efforts of Esin our Food Court Manager; it’s amazing what we can achieve when we work together.”

Transforming organic waste into a valuable commodity

When our customers speak, we listenThe 2019 transformation of Westfield Hurstville demonstrates Scentre Group’s ability to be agile in the face of change and deliver what customers wantThe team at Westfield Hurstville has reinvented and remixed its offering in response to a growing truism in the retail sector: bigger no longer necessarily means better. When one of Westfield Hurstville’s large discount department stores decided to vacate, the Centre Management team found themselves asking the question: How can we best reinvent this space for our customers?“Many department stores across Australia and New Zealand are thinking about their future, shaking things up, reviewing, rejigging and resizing. We are always listening to customer feedback to identify new and sought-after brands so we can curate the best offering of retail products, services and experiences. This particular situation provided us with an opportunity to create something new and unique for our customers at Hurstville,” says Westfield Hurstville Centre Manager, Michael Peck.Michael says one of the first things they did was to listen to the diverse needs of their customers and retailers. “Consulting with our customers and the local community was a vital part of this process and gave us some great ideas on how to fill the space. We found out what type of stores they would like to see in the centre and, having attracted those stores, the results have been nothing short of astonishing.”The departure of Target created space for three new medium-sized stores: TK Maxx, UNIQLO and JD Sports, and several smaller specialty stores. A grand launch of the three major brands in September 2019 enabled the stores to start as they meant to go on.At the opening of UNIQLO – the 7th UNIQLO store within the Westfield Living Centre portfolio - there were over 1,900 customers waiting in line to sample the new offering.“With Westfield Hurstville being a key place where the local community shop and dine, it was very encouraging for us that our store opening was met with such enthusiasm. We’re committed to providing customers in the Hurstville area access to well designed, high quality everyday essential apparel at an affordable price point,” says UNIQLO Australia Chief Operating Officer Kensuke Suwa.Michael agrees that the customer support has been overwhelming. “Ultimately, customers have had the casting vote, and they have done this with their feet. In addition to turning out in droves for a fantastic opening day launch, all the indicators since – foot traffic, retail sales, customer feedback and our Customer Advocacy Score (which has more than doubled since adding these new brands) – show that we are absolutely delivering what our customers want,” he says.“All the big shops are here now and there is a great variety of things to select and buy.” 
Google review, 29 Oct 2019
 
“Love all the new stores and variety as well as lots of huge retailers! Can get everything done in one location.”
Survey response, 12 Dec 2019The project has been a win for customers – who are thrilled to have access to much-anticipated new brands; a win for new retailers – who are ecstatic to have expanded their exposure to an enthusiastic customer base; a win for existing retailers – who are enjoying an increase in customer visitation; and a win for Westfield Hurstville – with increased foot traffic and sales.“Westfield Living Centres are at the heart of the local communities they serve and Scentre Group continues to be very proud of the role we fulfil in the lives of our customers, providing a mix of products, services and experiences they want,” continues Michael.“This project epitomises Scentre Group’s well-known ability to be agile in the face of change and perfectly demonstrates the value we place on our retail partnerships and customer relationships. When they speak, we listen.”

When our customers speak, we listen

Scentre Group included in Bloomberg Gender-Equality IndexScentre Group today announced that it was one of 325 companies globally, and one of nine in Australia, included in the 2020 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI). This marks the first time Scentre Group has been included in the index and supports the company’s focus on talent, diversity and inclusion.The GEI showcases leadership on gender equality across multiple dimensions and tracks the financial performance of public companies committed to supporting gender equality through policy development, representation, and transparency. The index measures gender equality across five pillars: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, sexual harassment policies and pro-women brand.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen said: “We are pleased to have been included in the GEI for the first time this year, recognising our ongoing commitment to creating a more equal and inclusive workplace,” Mr Allen said.“We are addressing gender equality on a number of fronts to ensure we drive strong employee engagement and retention and improve our productivity and business performance. This includes a Board-endorsed Diversity and Inclusion policy, an executive team endorsed D&amp;I strategy and an active D&amp;I Council driven by employee-led Working Groups. We think this balance between governance and targeted action fosters a culture that is consistent with our aspiration to be ‘the place where talent thrives’.”Mr Allen said Scentre Group has a Gender Equity Working Group as part its D&amp;I Council to remain focused on targets and address any perceived barriers for women to achieve more senior executive roles.“As CEO, I have a direct engagement program which includes Welcome Breakfasts to support onboarding and retention, a parental leavers lunch and other informal forums where I can hear from our people on the issues that are top of mind for them,” he said.“We provide equitable pay for like roles by gender and have continued to increase the proportion of women at all levels of management, with women currently representing 44 per cent of all people managers and 28 per cent at senior executive level.“In 2019, we continued our advocacy for parental leave equality. We recently updated our Parental Leave Policy to provide more options for our employees to ‘share the care’ including doubling the number of paid leave for secondary carers from two to four weeks and reducing the qualifying service requirement for paid parental leave from 12 months to 6 months.“Our plans and actions are delivering progress, but there’s a lot more to be done. Being transparent with our data and sharing our performance externally keeps us on track as we strive to do better.”Scentre Group has been endorsed by the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency as an employer of choice for the past two years. The company has been awarded Bronze status for the past two years at the Australian Workplace Equality Index Awards. CEO Peter Allen has been a Property Male Champion of Change since 2015.

Scentre Group included in Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index

Westfield Hurstville leads the way on water, waste and energy reductionsThe Westfield Hurstville facilities management team was able to significantly improve the environmental performance of the centre - including increasing its NABERS rating - after the commissioning of a state-of-the-art Building Management System.The new system allowed far greater control and the granular tuning of equipment for energy reduction, improved equipment performance and, importantly, an improved internal environment for customers, retailers and employees.“For a 40-year-old building this is a huge achievement and reflects the successful implementation of our new Building Management System,” says Westfield Hurstville Facilities Manager, Anthony Pantilas.With the centre operating seven days a week, there were challenges with performing largescale upgrades but with detailed strategic planning, thorough intelligence gathering, and much of the work being undertaken at night in a staged manner, Anthony says he is thrilled with how the new system is performing.“It is fantastic. We can now use live data to assess outside air conditions and determine whether we can use air rather than running chillers,” he says.The more ambient centre environment is being thoroughly enjoyed by the centre’s employees, retailers and customers. “We have seen a dramatic decrease in customer and retailer feedback regarding temperature, particularly on those 37-degree plus days,” Anthony says.Other initiatives include fine-tuning the major plant equipment to reduce water consumption of cooling towers, fitting water-efficient appliances in bathrooms, and replacing all internal legacy lighting with energy-efficient LEDs.“We expect the LEDs to consume less than a third of the energy required by the legacy system and they will also last much longer,” he continues.The savings are considerable. In the 2018 calendar year the team saw an 11.2% reduction in energy and 7.7% water consumption on 2017 results, and in 2019 this was reduced by a further 4% and 7%, respectively.
“I’m very proud of the savings we’ve made so far and we haven’t finished yet,” he says.L-R: The Westfield Hurstville team - Marcus Taylor, Fred Kak, Anthony Pantilas and Anthony Daniel.In addition to energy and water reductions, Westfield Hurstville also made great headway in waste management during 2019, with the Facilities Management team working incredibly hard to instil a mindset of collective responsibility across the centre and with retail partners.“The results are nothing short of amazing. We have diverted 49% of our waste from landfill with 39% of that being recycled completely. This includes 500 tonnes of cardboard, 29 tonnes of co-mingled, 14 tonnes of cooking oil and, my personal favourite, 200 tonnes of organics which are now in the process of being transformed into high-quality compost and mulch.”Talking to the achievements at the centre, Anthony says he is proud to work for an organisation that is taking its commitment to being a responsible, sustainable business so seriously.“It not only saves us money, but it is 100% the right thing to do.”

Westfield Hurstville leads the way on water, waste and energy reductions

Respect: finding out what it means to us and communities“Through this initiative, we were able to provide a safe platform for young people to express their ideas and have a voice in how they can have a more engaging impact within their community.” - Youth Off The Streets Program Manager, Employment Services, Sabrina MiselaRecognising that its 42 Living Centres are in a unique position to help at-risk youth, Scentre Group has been working to develop a National Youth Resilience Plan.The working plan is being led by Scentre Group’s National Community Experience Manager, Pam Wilson, in collaboration with representatives from the National Risk and Security team. It seeks to turn anti-social youth behaviour into an opportunity to help young people build resilience.“Westfield Living Centres are popular with young people, some of whom use them as a meeting place simply because they don’t have another safe space to get together. Sometimes when groups of young people congregate, some retailers and customers can feel intimidated and it can be challenging for our employees in-centre to manage,” explains Pam.“Our security teams regularly communicate with young people in our centres, but we want to take these relationships a step further and work with the young people and local community organisations to identify opportunities to create greater rapport with young people, help connect them with relevant service providers and hold meaningful events and activities in our centres that are relevant to them.”One pillar of Scentre Group’s Youth Resilience Plan focuses on Empowering Teams and a component of this is a national project to refresh the Youth Respect Cards. These cards, which outline centre rules and the expectations of young people while in Westfield centres, were developed about eight years ago and feedback showed they were no longer fit for purpose. Instead of the top-down approach in designing new ones, Pam says they decided to start at the grassroots level.“We wanted to ask a cohort of our target audience, that is the young people themselves, how they wanted Scentre Group employees to engage with them, what they thought of the Youth Respect Cards, and how we could make the cards more meaningful to them,” Pam continues.So, in November 2019, her team joined with Youth Off The Streets, who work with disadvantaged young people, to enlist eight participants for a three-hour co-creation workshop in Mt Druitt, in Sydney’s west.Youth Off The Streets Program Manager, Employment Services, Sabrina Misela, said the collaboration with Scentre Group and co-design initiative was a fantastic opportunity to reach and engage with young people in Mt Druitt in a respectful and inclusive way.“We are proud to be able to bring local youth and Scentre Group employees together to build strategies in strengthening relationships and providing more support within this community,” she said.“Through this initiative, we were able to provide a safe platform for young people to express their ideas and have a voice in how they can have a more engaging impact within their community,” she said.Participants said that the types of information that would be useful on the new card included how to find ‘What’s On’ information about the centre, basic centre rules, and pointers towards useful community services, such as the toll-free Kids Helpline.“We dug really deep, canvassing their ideas about a wide range of things,” Pam says.“It was a real privilege to connect with these extraordinary young people, hear their insights, experience their openness and enjoy their energy and humour.”“Youth Off The Streets has since hosted a survey with local youth about their perceptions of their local Westfield,” continues Pam. “We are really looking forward to receiving the results in early 2020.”The whole process has made it really clear to the Youth Resilience Plan team that centres have a huge opportunity to engage proactively and positively with young people. Pam says she is full of optimism for the future.“If we can support young people in our trade areas to thrive, we will be serving the whole community in which they live.”Other pilot projects underway as part of Scentre Group’s Youth Resilience Plan include Mental Health First Aid training for Scentre Group employees on how to guide an empathic conversation; and also the ABCN Mentorship and Leadership Program, which is proving a fantastic opportunity to connect one-to-one with Year 10 and Year 11 girls in Mt Druitt and Liverpool.

Respect: finding out what it means to us and communities

Drawing power from the sun while providing shade“We aim to reduce our own environmental impact as well as support our retail partners and communities in their sustainability aspirations,” says Scentre Group Head of Facilities Management, Varun Nair.As the leader of a team of 150+ facilities management personnel who manage operations at 42 Westfield Living Centres across Australia and New Zealand, Varun drives his passion for environmental sustainability, coupled with the strategic aims of the business, through his team and broader group. This resulted in a highly successful renewable energy generation project coming online at Westfield Coomera towards the end of 2018 when the centre was opened.“Westfield Coomera was a greenfield project, which means Scentre Group - which has integrated in-house capabilities across development, design and construction, as well as customer experience and asset management - built it from scratch,” says Varun.“Although my role is primarily in facilities and asset management, because of this in-house end-to-end capability, I was able to lead the solar initiative at Coomera and see it through from design through to operation. We were not constrained by the limitations of existing building infrastructure which we face on some of our existing centre developments and upgrades, allowing us to set an ambitious vision for solar.”One of Varun’s primary jobs was to get the solar business case across the line. “I was keen for renewable energy generation to be embedded in the design and ensured we thoroughly investigated all the options to see what best-in-class looked like in terms of the technology, size of the system, location and form – resulting in a favourable feasibility.”Although power generation was a main driver, the company also wanted to be clever about the design and create something to improve the overall experience for our customers and our people.“The innovation was solar shade panels that draw power from the sun while providing welcome shade in the rooftop car park,” says Varun. “We delivered a unique ‘gull-wing’ carpark structure which maximised the solar output of the system as well as covered more than 400 cars. At the time it was completed, it was the largest solar carpark installation in Australia.”The full installation size, which not only covers the car park but the roof of the centre too, is 2.3 Megawatts with an annual generation capacity of approximately 3,500 Megawatt hours. This equates to a CO2 offset of over 2,766 tonnes and is equivalent to the annual emissions of around  198 typical Australian households. In 2019, the system produced energy equivalent to 80% of the centre’s annual house electricity usage.Feedback from customers, retail partners and investors has been positive. “It’s something we get a lot of comments about from our customers, and with ongoing volatility in the electricity market, there is increasing interest about our approach to environmental management from our investors too,” he says.“There are also benefits for our retail partners. They know that a significant proportion of the electricity they use is clean energy which automatically reduces the environmental impact of their operations.”Varun said Westfield Coomera holds a unique place in the portfolio because of its greenfield origins and renewable generation capacity was built into the design. “Coomera is creating its own energy, it’s incredibly efficient, it has a reduced impact on the environment, but most of all, it’s testament to our people and their vision for the sustainable management of all our centres into the future,” he says.At a portfolio level, Scentre Group’s total energy generation from solar power in 2019 equated to 8,259 Megawatt hours, which is roughly the same as the total house electricity usage of a centre the size of Westfield Chatswood in NSW or Westfield Fountain Gate in Victoria.

Drawing power from the sun while providing shade

Behaviour change drives energy savings at Westfield Knox“I loved being involved in this project. It’s great to save the business money, but it feels even better to reduce our impact on the environment.”  - Naman Gupta, Facilities Manager, Westfield KnoxAs Facilities Manager at Westfield Knox and a passionate advocate for all things sustainability, Naman Gupta takes his energy, waste and water targets seriously. At the beginning of 2019, in an effort to reduce the centre’s energy consumption he took a look at the figures and realised some changes would need to be made.“At the rate we were tracking, it looked like we would actually exceed our 2018 consumption. I’m very proud to report that by the end of 2019 we had actually turned things around and reduced our energy consumption by upwards of 10%,” he says.So, without implementing any major structural changes, how were they able to make such significant savings? The first job was to delve into the data and brainstorm ideas. Naman says that far from being complex and expensive, many of their most impressive solutions resulted from simple, high-impact behaviour changes.“One quick, easy fix was to liaise with the security and cleaning teams to make sure escalators and lights were switched off when they were not needed,” he says.L-R: Jesse Kot - Scentre Group, Andrew Simon - Secure Corp and Xernan Tan - Scentre Group“Another was to partner with the service providers managing lighting as well as heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems for our retail partners. We were able to achieve significant energy savings by encouraging our retail partners to turn these systems off after their store was closed.”Another small action that resulted in big savings was to tweak the temperatures of their chilled water loop and HVAC system. “Just changing set point temperatures by between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees made a huge difference in terms of overall energy use,” Naman continues.While there are plenty of smart solutions aimed at better management of water, energy and waste systems, Naman says that in the short term this wasn’t an option for Knox.“We are investigating some major project works in the near future. But, frankly, our results this year show just how effective and impactful simple changes in behaviour can be,” he says.“I am incredibly happy with the results. It made me realise that you cannot take anything for granted and it is vital to stay curious,” he says.“To see such simple changes having such big impacts was motivating for not just my team, but the security and cleaning teams too. As soon as the results started coming in, I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What can I improve next?’”L-R: Naman Gupta - Scentre Group, Nicholas Giannoulakis - Scentre Group, Asanka Gulavita -Secure Clean

Behaviour change drives energy savings at Westfield Knox

Scentre Group and Salvation Army partner to support bushfire relief and recovery$500,000 cash donation to the Salvation ArmyIn-kind support in Westfield centres via digital screens, media network and community desks to facilitate Salvos fundraising campaignsScentre Group will provide a cash donation of $500,000 to the Salvation Army and additional in-kind support via the company’s digital screen and media network and community desks across its Westfield Living Centres to support the charity’s relief and recovery appeal in the wake of the bushfire emergencies.Scentre Group CEO Peter Allen said the scale and impact of the bushfires across Australia has been devastating and the company was partnering with the Salvos in a number of ways to support what is needed now and in the future.“On behalf of our company, I want to express our deepest condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones, homes, businesses and communities. We also express our deep admiration and gratitude to all of the volunteer firefighters and emergency services personnel for their efforts,” Mr Allen said.“We will partner with the Salvation Army with cash and in-kind support to facilitate delivery of their bushfire relief and recovery programs, recognising these efforts will take some time. This includes a cash donation of $500,000 as well as access to our digital screen and media network across our Westfield Living Centres to promote their fundraising campaigns. Additionally, we will provide access to our community desks in our centres to facilitate fundraising.”Mr Allen said every Westfield Living Centre was considered social infrastructure and had a community asset plan. This included providing support to local emergency services as a place of refuge or shelter when needed.He said impacted Scentre Group employees would be supported in a number of ways including through its Employee Assistance Program and by matching dollar-for-dollar any donations made to charitable and not-for-profit organisations through the company’s existing Workplace Giving Program, which includes the Salvation Army and many other organisations.