talentpool
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, INTROSPECTION, ACTION Commercial Real Estate Confronts Its Historical Hierarchies By Barbara Carss COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE investors, owners and managers are acknowledging that entrenched social inequities undermine their workforces, their tenants and the value of their portfolios. With both the COVID-19 pandemic and watershed events arising from systemic racism galvanizing their attention in 2020, senior executives and ESG (environmental, social, governance) practitioners with prominent Canadian companies have been grappling with how to rebalance hierarchies, broaden input, expand opportunities and reap returns from the resulting dynamics. Panellists participating in two recent online industry discussions outlined some of their efforts thus far, affirming that there is still much to learn and do. Institutional investors’ growing reliance on ESG benchmarking presents one obvious avenue to measure companies’ tangible commitment to diversity and inclusion, and to analyze and compare organizational performance. However, to date, reporting and assessment have been more tied to environmental imperatives. 56 April/May 2021 | Canadian Property Management
“The S is really hard,” mused Dan Winters, Head of the Americas for GRESB, during last fall’s Canadian release of 2020 ESG results for commercial real estate portfolios. “You hear this all the time: Let’s focus on the E, and we can metric it and we can figure that out. The S is tricky.” Property and asset managers sharing insight during a Buildings Week panel discussion sponsored by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Greater Toronto similarly noted that they are on something of a learning curve. While the industry’s endorsement of diversity and inclusion is certainly not new, and has often been tied to goals for attracting, nurturing and retaining adept, fresht h in k ing person nel, pa nell ists concurred that the year’s melding of homicidal racism and universal outrage pushed the issue to the forefront of their consciousness. “We’ve all started having some conversations that I think needed to be had,” observed Nata Sutic, Director of
Operational Excellence with QuadReal Property Group and current BOMA Toronto Chair. “We’ve had more conversations about: How do we hire people and who do we hire? We’re t h i n k i ng about ou r ow n bia ses, perhaps, and biases that are really built into our systems a nd how we’re operating.” LEADERSHIP & EXTERNAL INFLUENCES Panellists pointed to the guidance and di rections they a re getting from internal leadership and inf luential clients. Kevin Hardy, Vice President and Head of Oxford Properties Group’s Toronto office division, reports that Blake Hutcheson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Oxford’s pension fund parent, OMERS, has set the tone for the organization — for example, augmenting a l ready ex isting com m it ment s a nd obje ct ives by retaining outside expertise to provide awareness and training sessions. “Our teams are still a little too white and little too male, but I think there is
