The company discloses how it contributes to corporate citizenship in the regions in which it conducts its core business activities.
Engagement through core business activities Deutsche Wohnen is one of Germany’s leading real estate companies. As such, our core line of business alone – providing good-quality housing – has a variety of impacts on the social environment. Our successful performance results not only in happy tenants and investors – the surrounding districts also benefit from well-maintained buildings, attractive outdoor areas and the social projects that we support.
The strategic aims of our sustainability programme in the “Responsibility towards society” area of action are to promote a vibrant district structure and to further our social engagement. We firmly believe that numerous local activities in various locations will have a greater impact than single, larger-scale campaigns. We specifically focus on measures that allow us to use our core areas of expertise effectively.
Focus of Deutsche Wohnen’s social commitment:
- Raising the quality of the housing and the standard of living
- Appropriate maintenance of historic buildings worthy of protection so as to preserve cultural identity
Leveraging our core area of expertise also enables us to make our social engagement especially effective. We therefore primarily promote measures related to the topic of living in the broader sense. For example, we let commercial space to social facilities at a reduced rate. Furthermore, we help to finance social workers and allocate residential units to socially disadvantaged individuals.
We make approximately 4–5% of the space newly let each year available for social and non-profit purposes. We support initiatives which have a positive impact on the neighbourhoods within our estates and contribute to successful community interaction with donations or affordable housing.
Support for local projects
- Berlin-Hellersdorf: revitalising the district “Kastanien-Boulevard”
The Kastanienallee boulevard in Hellersdorf has been under the management of Deutsche Wohnen since 2013. While the majority of the commercial units have since been let again, the green and once bustling shopping street is still suffering from the results of an exodus of retailers which occurred in the 1990s. To initiate the boulevard’s redevelopment, the district management division established a diverse local participation process in 2016.
- “Wir zusammen”: prospects for refugees
Deutsche Wohnen made housing available to refugees right from the start of the influx of people seeking refuge. At the end of 2017, approximately 750 residential units from within our portfolio were let to refugees, around 300 of which are in Berlin alone. In addition, Deutsche Wohnen has been a member of the “Wir zusammen” (We Together) network since 2015. This integration initiative on the part of German industry promotes projects that facilitate integration and invigorate interaction and communication between residents and refugees.
Additional concrete examples of our social engagement can be found in our
Sustainability Report 2017, p. 62–63.