Hines Named Global ESG Firm of the Year

Hines has been recognized with four first place awards at the 2021 Global PERE Awards: ESG Firm of the Year: Global; Firm of the Year: Germany; Firm of the Year: France, and Firm of the Year: Southern Europe.

This recognition comes on the back of a year where Hines unveiled an ambitious new ESG strategy to elevate our commitments to ESG issues.

This major milestone recognized the area of ESG, which Hines believes supports innovation and benefits people and the planet.

During 2021, Hines:

• Created a strategic framework which highlights 16 key ESG focus areas.
• Established a new ESG team including a Global Head of ESG, VP-Carbon Strategy, VP-Global ESG and an ESG Senior Leadership Council.
• Partnered with structural and civil engineering firm Magnusson Klemencic Associates to develop an embodied carbon reduction guide for new developments. See how Hines is taking leadership on carbon reduction with our Embodied Carbon Reduction Roadmap.
• Expanded our employee volunteering program from a U.S. program to also include Canada, Mexico, Panama, UK, Netherlands and Ireland.
• Held 11 forums on building empathy, education and action around racial injustice across all the firm’s global regions.
• Created two new Employee Resource Groups focused on underrepresented groups at the firm.
• Along with partner Ivanhoé Cambridge, announced financing of CIBC SQUARE’s 141 Bay with a $780M Green Construction Loan.
• Earned the 2021 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year Sustained Excellence Award for continued leadership and superior contributions for the 17th time.
• Became a Signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

Additionally, Hines European Core Fund secured its first green loan facility in partnership with ING, and of nine investment entities submitted to GRESB, five earned Sector Leader Status.

Hines also earned three regional awards for 2021:

Firm of the Year: Germany

We closed on €2.3bn of new transactions including the off-market acquisition of MediaWorks Munich, which will be one of Hines Germany’s largest urban office developments with total project costs of more than €1bn. Thirty-six apartments for disabled and socially disadvantaged tenants and amenity spaces such as a music room including a grand piano, fitness room, kindergarten, barbecue station and the full digitalisation including an app and digital metering have been included at Südkreuz. With the projects MWM and aer, Hines Germany has two operationally carbon neutral developments.

Firm of the Year: France

We entered the burgeoning build-to-rent residential sector in France with the acquisition of a 300,000-square-footportfolio of eight prime sites across Paris and key regional cities. We bought 11 logistics assets spanning 3M square feet across France. In addition, we announced the appointment of Xavier Musseau as Country Head of France in late 2020.

Firm of the Year: Southern Europe

We were awarded the public tender for the acquisition of the Nodo Bovisa site in Milan, which will become home to MoLeCoLa, one of the most significant mixed-use projects in the city. We launched aparto, our student accommodation platform, in Italy. We secured leasing of flagship store in Madrid at our prime Calle Preciados 13 development.