Business ethics

To achieve our purpose, we have to act ethically and with integrity, behaving in the right way and speaking up if we think others are not doing this. During the year, we have refreshed our Code of Conduct which provides guidance on how to do the right thing and behave in the right way and highlights the key policies that all our employees must follow. It covers a number of topics about how we work together, including sustainability, financial commitments, communicating externally, health and safety, owning our behaviour and managing our data. 

The way we identify, manage and mitigate risks within our business is fundamental to our success. You can read more about how we manage risk, including the risk management strategy that we have established to identify, prioritise and improve cyber resilience across all our assets, in the Managing risk section on pages 58-59 and also our Audit Committee Report on pages 102-107 of our 2022 Annual Report.

The Board has zero tolerance for bribery and corruption of any sort and this is reinforced through our Code of Conduct. Our principal suppliers are required to have similar policies and practices in place within their own businesses.

Our Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy outlines the expected conduct of Landsec employees and how they can report any breaches. An updated training module on Anti-Bribery and Corruption was also launched last year which forms part of the induction process for all new employees.

Our Code of Conduct can be found here

Responsible procurement 

We focus on building strong, long-term relationships with our strategic suppliers – including those suppliers who employ people to work on our sites. All suppliers are asked to comply with our Supplier Code of Conduct which sets out our minimum expectations on how we expect our suppliers to act in relation to fairness, wages, diversity, equality and inclusivity. Additionally, all strategic suppliers are expected to operate our sites with respect to Landsec’s policies and standards on health and safety, anti-harassment and bullying, diversity and inclusion. 
Furthermore, in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we publish annually our Modern Slavery Statement that describes the policies, processes and actions we have undertaken to address and prevent modern slavery across our business and supply chain.
 

Health and safety

We’re committed to maintaining an exceptional standard of health, safety and security in all the working environments we control. The effective management of health, safety and security is fundamental to the productivity, culture and reputation of our business.

Our goal is to provide healthy and safe places and communities that support our people and partners in realising their potential. We recognise we can only achieve this by working closely with our partners, including our supply chain, investors and enforcing authorities. Health and safety considerations were central to our corporate response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The launch of our new corporate strategy prompted a review of our health and safety strategy and priorities. We consulted stakeholders from across the business to ensure we were addressing their needs and expectations for health and safety. Last year we changed our safety management system from the British Standard 18001 to the International Standard 45001. This year, our independent auditors conducted two rounds of remote auditing to maintain this accreditation. They found no non conformances nor made any recommendations.

We have continued to make health and safety considerations part of our recovery from the pandemic, by continuing to support and inform our people of our Covid-19 conscious approach and by providing clear, pragmatic guidance to our site teams, to ensure they have the tools to maximise our potential for a healthy recovery. We continue to support our strategy, for example by ensuring our ever-evolving retail propositions provide a safe, attractive offering for our occupiers and visitors. 

All our properties operate within a safety-management system certified to ISO 45001, and we continue to conform to it. In January 2022 we achieved certification to BS 9997 for our fire risk management system, and produced clear requirements for our development projects in anticipation of the Building Safety Act. In March 2022 we were we were awarded an ‘International Safety Award’ at the ‘distinction’ level by the British Safety Council in recognition of our commitment to health and safety over the year. 

To enable continuous safety and health progress, we reviewed occupational hazards in May 2021. Based on this, we identified and prioritised seven key areas we could improve. The topics focused on reducing the risk of occupational safety hazards, hazards to our people, partners and our customers.  We have worked with other leading property companies to establish uniformity in our safety and health data as a way of enabling performance benchmarking against our peer group.

Training 

We run a comprehensive mandatory programme of health and safety training for all our employees and contingent workers, and this year we reviewed it to ensure it remains of high quality, relevant, and up to date. The training is designed to ensure our people are aware of risk, and competent in identifying and managing our organisational risks.

This year, we also launched a learning management system that has enabled us to provide most of this training online, which improves where and when it can be completed. The system also simplifies booking and improves recordkeeping and reporting.

Fire Safety

We continue to enhance fire safety across the business and ensure we meet new government initiatives and legislation. We have seven high-rise residential buildings above 18 metres in our portfolio, and independent fire engineers are examining them all to ensure they remain safe for occupation and meet stringent new building regulations. If remediation is needed on the external walls, we will immediately implement  interim safety measures such as changing the evacuation strategy, introducing waking watches, or installing temporary fire-alarm systems. We will complete any remedial works as quickly as possible, with minimum disruption to tenants and local community. Checking we are achieving our high internal standards for health and safety is one of our key priorities. We have completed our full annual programme of ‘Property health check’ audits and client audits at all our development sites.