Group

Corporate responsibility (CR) underpins everything we do. That is why, even – and some would say especially – in this difficult economic climate, our commitment to CR remains as strong as ever. For us, its value is clear: by developing a leadership position in areas such as sustainability, community relations and employee development, we can ensure we remain the kind of company people want to work with and for.

In our day-to-day business we touch many people's lives, through owning retail property in which they shop, managing their place of work or regenerating their local community through development activity. It is in our interest to make sure their experiences of us are positive ones.

In this report, you will see lots of evidence to show we are striving to make a difference every day. But it's not just the headline-grabbing, award-winning examples of environmental sustainability like our development at Cabot Circus in Bristol and The Centre in Livingston that matter; it's all about continuous improvement in everything we do, whether it's our Capital Commitment Fund's support for charities and community projects across London, the volunteering work of our employees, or the new public spaces we've helped to establish across the UK through the delivery of our development programme. All these projects – and many more like them – demonstrate that we're not afraid to strive to deliver something that makes a positive difference, no matter how big or small, over the long term.

This report also marks the end of one chapter in Land Securities' CR life and the beginning of a new one. At the beginning of January 2009, we sold our Trillium business, which had played a tremendous role in the evolution of Land Securities over recent years, and a significant part in the progression of our CR activity. We will continue to develop some of those initiatives further. The more defined nature of our business now provides us with the opportunity to step back and refocus our approach to CR, and to deliver what is important in 2009/10 and beyond.

At Land Securities, we all believe good CR practices make for a stronger business and it is therefore essential that CR is embedded in what we do and how we do it. The targets we set will be challenging yet attainable, and will drive improvements in our performance across all areas of the business.

Francis Salway
Group Chief Executive