Community

We aim to create sustainable and vibrant communities that thrive long after we have completed the development phase.

Understanding our stakeholders

Balancing the needs of stakeholders is fundamental to the success of our business.

Our key stakeholders are:

  • Employees
  • Government and regulators
  • Securityholders and the investment community
  • Customers
  • Suppliers
  • Communities

We are working to embed a measurable and proactive stakeholder engagement framework into our daily operations. This year we have field tested our stakeholder engagement template to ensure a consistent and strategic approach across our projects.

This template ensures stakeholders are listed in priority order, with a focused plan for proactive engagement with each group that clearly identifies primary issues or concerns throughout the stages of a project. The plans address the particular social, political, economic and environmental concerns of the local and broader community that a project may affect.

Creating sustainable communities

We aim to create sustainable and vibrant communities that thrive long after we have finished development. To support this aim, we have designed a series of Community Development Guidelines for our Residential Communities business.

The guidelines detail best practice consultation methods and will be rolled out across all Residential Communities projects over the course of 2009-10.

They outline a simple process for projects to undertake a needs assessment of the local area, compile a community profile, and inform partnerships with key community groups. This will enable us to provide better outcomes for existing and future residents.

Community investment

Stockland's community investment program has been developed by our employees and is an important way for us to support their interests, as well as contribute to local communities.

Our Giving and Volunteering program includes employee donations to charitable organisations dollar matched by Stockland and participation of employees in volunteering activities.

Almost half of our employees have volunteered more than 3,500 hours in community activities over the past year. This activity has included 24 per cent of our employees mentoring students from 28 priorityfunded schools in Australia through our partnership with the Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN).