Industry-first association will develop a coalition of stakeholders to promote a recognised standard for engaging the commercial real estate sector in the sustainable transition of retail.
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) and Ingka Centres today announce the launch of the Sustainable Retail Index Association, an independent organization that will establish a recognized common standard for measuring and improving sustainability across retail real estate portfolios. The association will equip retail landlords with comprehensive insights on tenant sustainability performance to drive measurable progress.
The SRI Association will create a coalition of real estate stakeholders to advance transparency and shared accountability in sustainability. By promoting the adoption of the Sustainable Retail Index as an industry standard, the association aims to accelerate meaningful engagement between landlords and retailers on sustainable practices.
"The Sustainable Retail Index is a valuable tool in strengthening how we curate and future-proof our tenant mix across our meeting places. It enables us to better understand and support brands that are contributing to more sustainable and responsible lifestyles - an increasingly important priority for both our visitors and our partners. In implementing this initiative, our focus is on working closely with retailers to enhance transparency, encourage continuous progress and create commercially strong, sustainable destinations. Together with URW and Good On You, we’re taking an important step toward shaping retail environments that deliver long-term value for businesses, communities and the planet."– Vasco Santos, Global Director of Leasing, Ingka Centres
"We are delighted to partner with Ingka Centres as co-founding members of the Sustainable Retail Index Association. The Sustainable Retail Index has allowed us to measure the sustainability commitment and progress of our retailers and engage with them on a tangible and analytical basis to support their sustainable ambitions. We are proud to work with Ingka Centres, Sonae Sierra and other landlords to increase adoption of the Sustainable Retail Index, improve transparency, and engage brands and retailers to transform our industry."– Sylvain Montcouquiol, Chief Resources and Sustainability Officer, URW
Alongside URW and Ingka Centres, Sonae Sierra will join the Association, demonstrating its sustainability leadership and shared commitment to leveraging the unique influence retail landlords have to engage tenants and drive critical change.
The Sustainable Retail Index is a collaborative assessment tool designed to help landlords and retailers better understand and improve sustainability commitments and performance across company, product and operational levels. URW began implementing the index in 2023, and it now covers more than 73% of eligible revenues across URW’s portfolio of shopping centres. Beyond informing business decisions, the index supports more transparent dialogue with retailers, helps identify shared opportunities for improvement and strengthens engagement with consumers around more sustainable choices.
Ingka Centres, with a long-standing commitment to mapping and improving the sustainability impact of its portfolio, has now deployed the SRI across its 38 meeting places in 15 markets.
Good On You, a globally recognised ratings platform widely used across the industry, is the lead data partner of the SRI, bringing deep expertise in sustainability assessments across retail supply chains. Its independent data makes up 75% of the calculation, bringing together publicly available information leveraging 1,000 datapoints for each brand across key social and environmental issues, while the remaining 25% utilises third-party audits of store-level practices.
"We’re proud to partner with the SRI Association and support retail industry leaders to enable better decision-making and wider engagement on urgent challenges. We can’t accelerate the shift towards more responsible and sustainable practices in retail without transparency. That’s why Good On You has leveraged our value chain expertise and ratings data to help establish a shared industry standard that guides brand action, consumer choices and systemic change across the retail ecosystem."– Sandra Capponi, co-founder, Good On You
The SRI Association also benefits from the technical and critical expertise of WWF France on the methodology of the SRI and its future developments*. In addition, WWF France acts as a civil society representative and monitors the results of the Sustainable Retail Index.
More information on the SRI Association is available at www.sriassociation.org; interested stakeholders can reach out via the website for more information on joining.
*WWF France contributes its critical expertise to strengthen the transparency and methodological rigor of the SRI, without certifying the performance of assessed retailers or assets.
About Ingka Group
With IKEA retail operations in 32 markets, Ingka Group is the largest IKEA retailer and represents 87% of IKEA retail sales. It is a strategic partner to develop and innovate the IKEA business and help define common IKEA strategies. Ingka Group owns and operates IKEA sales channels under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. It has three business areas: IKEA Retail, Ingka Investments and Ingka Centres. Read more on Ingka.com.
About Ingka Centres
Ingka Centres is part of the Ingka Group (which also includes IKEA Retail and Ingka Investments). Ingka Centres has more than 50 years of experience in shopping centres and today works with over 2,500 brands across its portfolio of 38 meeting places in 15 markets. The company hosts and serves more than 320 million visitors each year. Ingka Centres creates its meeting places by collaborating with local communities, as well as its tenants and partners, to ensure they are destinations with emotional meaning that add value and build social connections.
More information: LinkedIn, Facebook, X. https://www.ingkacentres.com
About Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) operates vibrant retail-anchored destinations in many of the world’s best cities and urban areas. This powerful network attracts over 900 million customer visits annually, supports the growth of major retailers, and makes a significant social and economic contribution to local communities.
This network includes 66 owned shopping centres in the US and Europe that represent around 88% of the Group’s €49 Bn asset portfolio – with 41 centres operating under the iconic Westfield brand. URW also has partners who operate Westfield-branded destinations in fast-growing new markets.
Through its ‘A Platform for Growth’ business plan, URW is generating organic growth, leveraging the power of the Westfield brand, and unlocking capital light growth opportunities to generate compelling shareholder returns. This is supported by the Group’s ‘Better Places’ sustainability roadmap, which has established URW as a leader in the real estate industry and one of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world.
URW’s stapled shares are listed on Euronext Paris (Ticker: URW). The Group is rated BBB+ by Standard & Poor’s and Baa2 by Moody’s.
For more information, please visit www.urw.com.
About Good On You
Good On You is the most comprehensive and widely trusted brand ratings system for fashion and beauty. The biggest retailers, brands, and millions of consumers rely on its transparent sustainability data and robust ratings to make better choices and drive industry change.
Since 2015, Good On You has built a database of over 6,000 retail brands, all assessed against its world-leading ratings system for their impact on people, the planet, and animals. Proprietary ratings tech powers sustainability solutions for major retailers and e-commerce players, including Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Yoox-Net-A-Porter, and Klarna.
Good On You’s independent ratings and user-friendly tools – including the ratings API, dashboard and Good Measures hub – help retailers easily assess and improve portfolio performance and credibly engage consumers on sustainability.
For more information: https://partnerships.goodonyou.eco
Media enquiries
For further information, journalists and media professionals can contact us at [email protected] or by calling +46 70 993 6376.
