2014 Global Citizenship Report - Avison Young HR, Accounting) Young ... Avison Young was named a...

Avison Young 2014 Global Citizenship Report 1

2014 Global Citizenship Report

About Avison Young P2 | Executive Message P3 | Global Citizenship Strategy P4 | Our Five Pillars P5 | Contact Details P12

2 Avison Young 2014 Global Citizenship Report

About Avison YoungAvison Young is the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Avison Young is a collaborative, global firm owned and operated by its principals. Founded in 1978, the company comprises 1,800 real estate professionals in 66 offices, providing value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management, financing and mortgage placement services to owners and occupiers of office, retail, industrial and multi-family properties. The firm has more than 75 million square feet of property under management and $320 million CDN of assets under management. (Figures current as of May 2015.)

Our vision is to build the leading global real estate solutions company by aligning the interests and needs of clients with the superior skill sets and intellectual capital of our professionals, using a unique and transformational delivery structure.

2014 Highlights• Added nine new offices and completed 11 acquisitions

• Began global expansion into Europe, opening offices in the U.K. and Germany in 2014

• Completed a new round of equity in August and a new credit facility in December 2014, which together position Avison Young to accelerate its expansion of service lines and geography

• Four-time winner of Canada’s Best Managed Companies award, achieving Gold Standard status in 2014

• Joined the Canada Green Building Council and U.S. Green Building Council

• Created and approved the Avison Young Global Citizenship strategy

• Launched inaugural company-wide dAY of Giving

Offices in Toronto (HQ) (2), Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Calgary, Charlotte, Chicago (2), Cleveland, Columbus OH, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Duesseldorf, Edmonton, Fairfield/Westchester, Fort Lauderdale, Frankfurt, Guelph, Halifax, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Lethbridge, London U.K., Long Island, Los Angeles (4), Miami, Minneapolis, Mississauga, Moncton, Montreal, Munich, New Jersey, New York City, Oakland, Orange County, Orlando, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Quebec City, Raleigh-Durham (2), Regina, Reno, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, South Carolina (2), Suburban Maryland, Tampa, Thames Valley U.K., Toronto North, Tysons Corner, Vancouver, Washington DC, West Palm Beach (2) and Winnipeg.

On the cover: dAY of Giving, Charleston, South Carolina


2014 marked the launch of Avison Young’s Global Citizenship strategy. Mark Rose, Chairman and CEO; and Rodney McDonald, Principal, Consulting and Project Management Services, and leader of the Global Citizenship Affinity Group, provide insights into the strategy and how it will change Avison Young.

What is Global Citizenship?

Mark: Global Citizenship is the name of Avison Young’s corporate social responsibility, sustainability and philanthropy strategy. I see it as the natural outcome of Avison Young’s culture and focus on creating long-term value, and a logical next step as we grow. It provides a framework for ensuring that our culture remains focused on excellence and integrity, and that we are in a strong position to help our clients identify and act on emerging environmental and social issues and opportunities.

Rodney, as leader of the Avison Young Global Citizenship Affinity Group, how did the team go about developing the strategy?

Rodney: Avison Young’s business model is a unique structure of service line affinity groups that collaborate across all the markets in the company. In 2013, we created a Global Citizenship Affinity Group to develop a comprehensive and deliberate Global Citizenship strategy. The group is composed of representatives of all other affinity groups (service lines and infrastructure resources alike) and their hundreds of members, and reflects the geographic scope of the firm. With help from external sustainability consultants, the Group conducted extensive research, crafted a strategy and roadmap for Avison Young’s sustainability journey, and ultimately gained internal Executive Committee approval for the Global Citizenship strategy and its implementation.

How will the Global Citizenship strategy change Avison Young?

Rodney: From a client perspective, it should become very clear that sustainability is an integral part of our DNA and the way we do business – as opposed to a “bolt-on” service – and that we can help clients meet their sustainability goals. For example, when providing project management services, we will automatically integrate sustainability into design and building processes. Or, if our brokers are touring people through a new LEED-certified building, they will be able to speak as knowledgeably about green features as they do about square footage or net rent.

Mark: For our company, Global Citizenship will strengthen our strategy, services and culture. This, in turn, will help us provide the services our clients need, reduce costs, and attract and retain the best people in the industry. As the name suggests, Global Citizenship is also a means for expanding our contributions to the communities in which we operate – and to society as a whole. Global Citizenship is not a program; it is our collaborative belief system and culture, and it is embedded within the fabric of who we are.

Mark Rose, Chairman and CEO

Rodney McDonald, Principal, Consulting and Project Management Services


Global Citizenship StrategyGlobal Citizenship is a focused strategy developed and approved by our Executive Committee in 2014 to ensure that Avison Young is in a position to effectively address the ever-changing needs of our clients and our people.There is growing pressure on the commercial real estate industry to address environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects. Issues such as climate change and workforce diversity have become mainstream societal and business concerns. Many U.S. cities now require building owners to disclose energy use – and Canadian municipalities are expected to follow suit. Stakeholders, including owners, investors and tenants, are looking

at companies and properties through an ESG lens and demanding more action and accountability.

Our Global Citizenship strategy is aimed at helping our firm, partners and clients identify, evaluate and act on ESG issues and opportunities. It is a holistic strategy that aligns the diverse perspectives and priorities of employees, executives, clients and other important stakeholders.

Enterprise Solutions

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Landlord RepresentationA�nity Group

Project Management

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Property Management

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Capital Markets A nity Group

Tenant AdvisoryA�nityGroup

Investment Management

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Investment Banking A nity Group

Research A nity Group

Operations A nity Group (Operations,

Marketing, IT, HR,

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Young Guns A nity Group

Healthcare A nity Group

Industrial A nity Group

Retail A nity Group

Global Citizenship A�nity Group

The six-month strategic development process involved:• Hiring sustainability consultants – The Natural Step

and Deloitte – to guide our steps

• Establishing the Global Citizenship Affinity Group, initially at 25 members

• Interviewing seven Avison Young executives

• Surveying 1,500 Avison Young employees

• Interviewing 18 external stakeholders

• Conducting an external industry scan of 10 companies

• Holding a two-day strategy development workshop of the Global Citizenship Affinity Group

“ The notion of responsible property investing is strategic in everything we do. We want to do business with people who will add to our reputation.” – Avison Young client


Helping Clients Achieve Excellence

By providing our clients with industry-leading strategies that work, we help them achieve excellence by integrating sustainability into their financial, operational and cultural goals.

Delivering Our Difference

Customer-focused and principal-led, we are accountable beyond individual assignments and transactions to demonstrate leadership in corporate social responsibility and sustainability that further aligns our company with the long-term needs of our clients.

Achieving Operational Excellence

By aiming for the highest achievable standards in sustainable operations, we set an example that demonstrates our commitment and capabilities, which ultimately contributes to our bottom line.

Supporting Our Communities

We believe our activities and the actions of our people should always have a net positive impact on our communities. At both the corporate and individual levels, Avison Young actively contributes resources to improve the communities where we do business.

Creating a Culture of Excellence

We “deliver different” by supporting a culture of excellence that enables us to attract, retain and develop the best people in our industry, which in turn positions us to achieve the vision described by the Five Pillars of our culture.

Our Five PillarsThe Global Citizenship strategy has five clear focus areas, or “pillars,” related to clients, governance, environment, employees and communities. For each pillar, we have identified a year 2030 aspirational goal, milestones for years one, four and nine of the strategy, and specific performance metrics.

“ We have a code of conduct that is applied to all of our suppliers. Our code is being applied to construction partners today and will stretch out to a wider audience.” – Avison Young stakeholder


Helping Clients Achieve Excellence

Our clients are at the centre of Avison Young’s business model. To help clients meet their increasingly complex goals, we are integrating sustainability into existing services and introducing new sustainability services for emerging markets and demands. We are also developing sustainability training for all service lines.

We plan to measure:

• % of transactions executed using sustainability services or components

• % increase of client base through sustainability initiatives

• % increase in client assignments resulting from integrated sustainability services

By 2030, we aspire to be the global benchmark for innovative, sustainable commercial real estate services that provide long-term value.

Why it matters

Environmental, regulatory, market and societal trends pose growing risks and opportunities for our clients. We want to guide them appropriately in this new world, anticipating their needs and offering intelligent solutions that help them mitigate the risks and seize the opportunities to build long-term value.

“ Given that Avison Young is a service provider, your environmental impact is unlikely to be significant. Your most important contribution would be advisory, providing experience and knowledge of sustainable concepts.” – Avison Young client

Our Five Pillars


Panasonic Building, Newark, New Jersey

Sonoco Products Supplier Diversity Award recipients and Avison Young Principals Char Fortune

and Chip Watson

Supplier Diversity Award

Avison Young was named a 2014 recipient of Sonoco Products Company’s esteemed global Supplier Diversity Award. Sonoco made us aware of its diversity goals and challenged us to provide outstanding service and to identify expert partners among real estate businesses owned and operated by women, African-Americans and other minorities who would help Sonoco meet its own strategic goals. This award confirmed our progress.

Meeting Highest Standards of Sustainability and Innovation

Avison Young was proud to see the headquarters of Panasonic Corporation of North America in Newark, New Jersey achieve LEED for Commercial Interiors Platinum certification – a project for which we were the tenant representation project manager, overseeing the entire design and construction of Panasonic’s interior build-out. The 280,000-square-foot, LEED Core and Shell Gold certified building, in which Panasonic is the primary tenant, includes a state-of-the-art Idea Centre, an employee cafeteria, a recreation room with pool and shuffleboard tables, a 28,000-square-foot conference centre, and eight floors of collaborative workstations with direct views to the outdoors from every employee’s seat. Among its green features, low-flow fixtures in pantries and restrooms reduce water usage by 35% below allowable levels, and a complete day-lighting system automatically dims light fixtures based on the natural light passing through the glass façade.

Our Five Pillars


Our Five Pillars

Delivering Our Difference

We aim to ensure that our governance structure and management systems support our Global Citizenship strategy by putting in place the appropriate policies, metrics, linkages and resources. This, our inaugural Global Citizenship report, is a first step in our journey.

Our metrics include:• Annual board reviews of social and environmental

performance

• Identifying annual revenue linked to provision of services with sustainability outcomes

• Initiating GRESB reporting in 2015 and annual or biennial Global Citizenship report

By 2030, we want our governance structure for sustainability to be embedded in our principal-led culture, drive principal share value and build accountability for our sustainability success throughout the organization.

Why it mattersTo be the safe pair of hands for our clients and ensure the strength and longevity of our strategy, we need to be deliberate about embedding Global Citizenship into our systems, processes and culture. We want to do this in a way that recognizes – and leverages – the unique corporate structure and principal-led culture that set Avison Young apart from our peers and enable us to deliver unique client value.

Canada’s Best Managed CompaniesAvison Young was honoured to be named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for the fourth consecutive year in 2014. Established in 1993, Canada’s Best Managed Companies is one of the country’s leading business awards programs, recognizing Canadian companies that have implemented world-class business practices and created value in innovative ways.

“ Properly applied, sustainability is simply good and smart business.” – Dr. Blair Feltmate, University of Waterloo


Our Five Pillars

Achieving Operational Excellence

We will aim for the highest achievable standard in sustainable operations at our own offices. We plan to establish a baseline for energy use, CO2 emissions and water use in 2015 and will then strive for specific reduction targets in each of these areas.

At all Avison Young offices, we plan to measure:• % of energy reduction from 2015 baseline

• Total net production of CO2 emissions

• % reduction in water consumption

By 2030, we aspire to operate our company at all levels and regions in ways that demonstrate our sustainability commitment; lower operating, energy and water costs; and reduce waste and emissions. We want to set an example of excellence for all of our stakeholders

Why it mattersTo be a true leader in sustainability, we need to take care of our own house. Our clients expect us to be models of resource efficiency and good environmental practice, and we expect the same of ourselves. We also recognize the opportunities to enhance operating profits and educate our staff by implementing thoughtful energy, paper and waste reduction initiatives.

Walking the TalkFor our Toronto head office, we deliberately chose a LEED Gold certified building that is near the Union Station transit hub. Approximately 75% of our downtown staff walk or take public transit to work. To further encourage this behaviour, we installed a TransitScreen display that provides real-time schedule information for the various nearby transportation options.

“ We moved into a LEED Gold building because we wanted to take a leadership role and be a commercial real estate company that doesn’t just talk about sustainability, but does something to show our clients that we truly care.” – Mark Fieder, Managing Director, Avison Young

CEO Mark Rose and Principal Rodney McDonald in front of a TransitScreen

at the Avison Young Toronto headquarters, one of Canada’s first commercial

installations of the technology


Supporting Our Communities

Avison Young has a long history of ad hoc community support. With the launch of the Global Citizenship strategy, we established a Charity and Philanthropy Committee to create an overarching philanthropy strategy and guidelines to help local offices make donation decisions. The committee also engages employees in selecting the charities of choice for corporate Avison Young support.

We plan to measure:• Financial contribution to philanthropic endeavours by

office (% of firm revenue)

• Employee hours spent in firm-sponsored volunteer activities

• Number of community benefit projects completed

By 2030, we want our services, projects, business processes and charitable and philanthropic endeavours to enable us to have a net positive impact on the communities in which we operate.

Why it mattersAs a corporate citizen, we believe that we have a responsibility to give back to the communities in which we operate. We do so by providing financial support to community causes and by encouraging our employees to help out in community projects that are important to them. The Global Citizenship strategy will help us leverage and measure our community involvement across the company to amplify our impact, and it will help drive employee engagement and satisfaction.

Company-wide dAY of GivingOn October 9, 2014, employees at 60 Avison Young offices took a break from their regular jobs to work on local community projects during the inaugural, company-wide dAY of Giving. In total, Avison Young people provided more than 3,500 hours of service to more than 45 charities around the globe.

“ Global Citizenship is another opportunity to confirm the culture of the company … to ourselves, our clients, our peer group and others. Giving back to the community and doing the right thing is in line with the way we’ve always done business.” – Keith Lipton, Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Operations, Avison Young

Our Five Pillars

dAY of Giving, Toronto, Ontario


Creating a Culture of Excellence

We are embedding Global Citizenship into our culture. In 2014, we launched an employee wellness strategy that included a year-long program of personal coaching and a Lose to Gain weight loss challenge. We also established a Diversity and Inclusion affinity group and a Women’s Network to better support specific segments of our employee population.

We plan to measure:• % of new hires and staff identifying global citizenship

as a key attractor

• Employee retention levels and success in recruiting the next generation of commercial real estate leaders

• % of employees trained in sustainability service delivery

By 2030, we expect an ethos of corporate responsibility and sustainability to be a defining characteristic of our culture, providing opportunities for continual learning and development for our people and creating a healthy work environment.

Why it mattersTo deliver outstanding client service and achieve our business goals, we need to attract top-echelon professionals and provide them with enriched work experiences in an environment where they are respected, engaged and rewarded for their contributions. The Global Citizenship strategy can help drive alignment with employees’ values, enhance employee engagement and differentiate Avison Young from other employers.

Diversity and Inclusion: Women’s NetworkOur Women’s Network is a grassroots effort aimed at accelerating the advancement of women in our company. Spearheaded by a group of professional women who recognize the challenges of working in a male-dominated industry, the network provides a forum for making connections and sharing information and experiences. One of the network’s first initiatives is a mentoring program for women.

Since 2009, the 30% Club (a group of business leaders committed to achieving better gender balance at all levels of organizations) has successfully encouraged every FTSE 100 company to include women on its board.

“ Highly engaged organizations have 87% less staff turnover and 20% better performance than average.” (Source: Corporate Leadership Council, Driving Performance and Retention through Employee Engagement, 2004)

Our Five Pillars


For more information about our Global Citizenship initiatives, please visit us online at www.avisonyoung.com/about/global-citizenship, or contact:

Rodney McDonald, CMC, LEED APPrincipal, Consulting and Project Management Services Leader, Global Citizenship Affinity Group

Avison Young [email protected]

“ Global Citizenship provides a framework for ensuring that our culture remains focused on excellence and integrity, and that we are in a strong position to help our clients identify and act on emerging environmental and social issues and opportunities.” – Mark Rose, Chairman and CEO, Avison Young

dAY of Giving, Denver, Colorado

dAY of Giving, Huntington Beach, California

dAY of Giving, Vancouver, British Columbia

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