European residential real estate company Heimstaden Bostad has set new climate targets to bring its operations in line with the objectives of the Paris agreement, pledging to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 46% by 2030 - and predicting this would cost SEK5bn (€493m).
The firm, founded in Malmö in Sweden, also committed to reduce the amount of energy it purchased by 2% on average every year until 2025 and said it was introducing a new requirement that its suppliers covering 70% of scope 3 emissions had to set science-based targets by 2025.
Patrik Hall, Heimstaden’s chief executive officer, said: “At Heimstaden, we take our responsibility as one of the largest residential real estate owners in Europe seriously and wish to lead by example when setting new ambitious and science-based sustainability targets, which will also have a positive long-term impact on our financial and operational performance.”
The firm said its new targets and their roadmap would be sent to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for verification — a collaboration between CDP, World Resources Institute, the WWF, and the UN Global Compact, which aimed to define and promote best practice in greenhouse gas emissions reduction target-setting.
Katarina Skalare, the firm’s chief sustainability officer, said: “We have set ambitious, but realistic, targets and roadmaps, and with support from the initiative, we hope to be successful in doing our part to mitigate climate change.”
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