Sustainable Development Report 2015

Jean-Edouard Carbonnelle - CEO Cofinimmo

Global warming is proven. COP21 was a success. What are

the issues for Cofinimmo?

We signed the charter that encouraged the Belgian govern-

ment to adopt a very proactive attitude at the COP21 confer-

ence in December 2015 in Paris.

With transport, real estate is the largest energy consuming

sector. Since many years, we aim to improve the average

consumption of our buildings, and we will increase our efforts

in this direction, in full collaboration with our tenants.

Real estate is sensitive to demographics. What influence

can new migration flows have?

There’s no need for supplementary constructed surface areas

if demography does not require more housing, workspaces,

surface areas for healthcare, etc. Migration flows to Europe

are immense political and economic challenges. There is a

need to produce housing necessary to accommodate these

migrants. We studied then completed the conversion of two

office buildings in the Brussels-Capital Region into 24,000 m²

of apartments, and we are currently involved in two other

conversions: one into apartments, and the other into a nurs-

ing home for elderly people.

Is the conversion of office buildings an opportunity or a

challenge for Cofinimmo?

Constructions must be adapted to actual needs of the city in

order to respond to how future generations will live. It is within

that framework that these buildings must be converted, add-

ing sustainable quality by using the latest techniques, and

ensuring later that they are properly operated.

The recycling of materials and the circular economy have

been increasingly discussed. Is that the case for buildings?

We always hope to keep the structure of a building, even if a

large-scale renovation is necessary. However, sometimes we

prefer to demolish and rebuild. Either way, we try to use the

latest, most effective materials, that will enhance a building’s

life cycle.

What means are you implementing to achieve your sustaina-

ble development goals?

It’s primarily a matter of internal organisation. Our techni-

cal departments handle the entire issue of renovation of

our buildings, and we have a “Sustainability Committee”

responsible for defining policies, as well as an “Environmental

Manager” who monitors all regional and national regulations.

This person is also tasked with encouraging all of us within

the company to think about what we can do more and better

each year – next year and the coming years– in a very long-

term perspective.

These sustainable development goals cannot be achieved

without additional financial resources. In 2015 our sharehold-

ers entrusted us with 285 million EUR of additional equity, half

of which will be assigned to improve our portfolio buildings’

performance and the balance will be used for acquisitions.

The population of elderly people is an extremely important

topic for real estate needs over the coming years in Brussels,

in the various regions of the country and abroad. Our health-

care real estate portfolio, which is now Cofinimmo’s main

area, stretches across four countries. Its primary target is

operators of medical retirement homes as well as operators

of facilities dedicated to rehabilitation, psychiatric care,

and care for the disabled. In short, focus is on the medium

and long term. But we’ve also started to invest in buildings

intended for short-term treatment, and we aim to help hospi-

tals, being large entities, by funding annex buildings working

on rehabilitation or serving as medical office buildings and

medical consultation centres.

MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

The full interview with Jean-Edouard Carbonnelle is

available at