Drawing on its prior history of almost 55 years as Westfield, Scentre Group is continuing its mission to ensure the long-term future of the business is one that is sustainable in every sense of the word.

As a new organisation, Scentre Group quickly articulated its purpose: to create extraordinary places connecting and enriching communities, giving meaning and direction to every activity undertaken by the business. We also defined our DNA: a cultural blueprint that helps inform the behaviours of our employees in enacting our purpose and achieving our strategic objectives of owning, managing and developing the best retail assets in Australia and New Zealand.

In the relatively short space of time since becoming Scentre Group, our business has already generated excellent returns for security-holders thanks to our high-quality portfolio of Westfield shopping centres, our unique market position and strong operating performance. This has been supported by a consistent strategic focus on asset management, our development pipeline, capital management and retailer and shopper initiatives.

"Sustainability is a priority for Scentre Group as we strive to operate safely and efficiently, engage meaningfully with our stakeholders and utilise technology and design to create extraordinary shopping centres."

Peter Allen, Scentre Group CEO

During this time we have continued to build on the principles of sustainability which were long-established during our time as Westfield, and have grown them in alignment with the focus on our culture and operations. Fundamentally, sustainability is a priority for Scentre Group as we strive to operate safely and efficiently, conserve energy, produce less waste, engage meaningfully with our stakeholders and utilise technology and design to create extraordinary shopping centres.

This report, focusing on our performance in sustainability during 2015, is the second for Scentre Group, and the first that reports on a full-year basis as a new organisation. In embedding sustainability more deeply into the structure of how we work, in 2015 we established a Sustainability Business Council, a cross-divisional committee comprising members of the most senior leadership team to help drive the sustainability agenda and, in particular, to minimise our environmental impact by reducing our energy consumption and carbon footprint. These efforts were complemented by the extensive work done to support our human resources agenda as we steered our people and culture on the transformational journey from Westfield to Scentre Group. Our purpose to enrich our communities completes the picture for 2015, encompassing wide-ranging community engagement both inside our shopping centres and beyond.

As we move forward as a new organisation, Scentre Group has the benefit of extensive experience in shopping centre ownership and management, combined with a reason for doing business, and a way of doing it that is already deeply embedded.

The Board of Directors and I look forward to a future we believe will deliver the long-term sustainability and growth of our business, creating genuine value for all our stakeholders.

Peter Allen
Chief Executive Officer