Bopro is a UNITAR SDG Pioneer!

The SDG Pioneer certificate from UNITAR, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research headquartered in Geneva, recognises Bopro as a sustainable pioneer in its sector, a company that has strategically embedded the 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs of the United Nations in its organisation and portfolio.

To the independent jury, Bopro was able to present a remarkable sustainability track record. Sustainability has been an integral part of the company's DNA for 14 years. This translates into how the company behaves as an organisation but equally in the services it offers to its clients and the developments it guarantees itself.

"We could present to CIFAL Flanders a long track record when it comes to sustainability and implementation of sustainable principles. We took our first steps in 2008 long before the SDGs were defined. We felt an incredible need to change course. We could no longer 'use' nature with impunity. After all, we are temporary occupants/users of this earth, it is our duty to take good care of what we are given on loan so that we can preferably pass it on even better to future generations." - Peter Garré Managing Director of Bopro.

In 2010, Bopro published its first CSR report and expressed its ambition to become a carbon-neutral company by 2020.

With their services and in-house developments, they as an organisation add value economically, socially, environmentally and technically. To focus and keep their focus sharp, they use the materiality matrix. The themes as defined today got their origin from the SDGs and the EU green deals.

"The board, management team and employees of Bopro not only know the SDGs, they also use these 17 world goals in daily practice as inspiration and reference framework for future-proofing their real estate projects."

Moreover, Bopro takes an active pioneering role in the sustainability landscape, both in their sector and broadly socially and both locally and internationally. Their vision and concrete examples in each of the six areas of sustainability - learning, organising, formulating, implementing, evaluating and reporting - convinced the external jury and UNITAR to award them the SDG Pioneer certificate. Meanwhile, they also decided to launch the second level of ambition, that of SDG Champion. This proves their ambition to further strengthen their sustainability impact in the coming years as well." - Peter Wollaert, Director CIFAL Flanders.

In early 2019, Bopro evaluated the 17 SDGs including the 169 sub-targets.

This internal exercise resulted in 80 sub-targets. Sub-topics on which Bopro judges they can have an impact on these topics as an organisation. These 80 were further refined into 37. These are the objectives Bopro focuses on or at least wants to have a positive impact on. The objectives were grouped under 6 themes. These form the common thread throughout the do's and don'ts and immediately guide their CSR report: Optimising, Upscaling, Growing, Preserving, Rescaling and Rethinking.

"We do not neglect any SDG. More than that, for each SDG we keep at least 1 sub-objective. This means we include each SDG in our day-to-day service to our clients and in our own projects. We report on the achievement of these targets according to the GRIstandard. This way, we are transparent and keep our finger on the pulse for ourselves." - Stefaan Martel Managing Director Bopro.

Since 2010, when Bopro put BREEAM assessments fully on the market, the number of certified projects and buildings in its client portfolio has been rising steadily from 30% in 2016 to 70% in 2021.

This trend is in line with social awareness of climate risks and the intentions of European institutions to set more ambitious targets on CO2 emissions. Bopro aims to certify 95% of its projects according to a sustainability label or methodology (Breeam, DGNB, Well, GRO , CSRD, EU taxonomy) by 2026

"We want to grow this share even further in the coming years. We will therefore make full efforts in our communication in the coming period to spread our knowledge on sustainability. We will massively share our conviction to work with this SDG framework. We are reaching out to CIFAL Flanders to shape this 'spread the SDGword' together." - Peter Garré Managing director of Bopro