Community involvement
Corio views community involvement as a way of establishing long-term, sustainable relationships with visitors to our centres and local residents, as well as with local authorities and government agencies. We invest in our relationships with these local stakeholders in order to, where necessary, improve public safety and job opportunities and ensure our shopping centres fit in with the local environment.
Examples
Corio took various steps in 2008 to demonstrate its involvement in the communities in and around its shopping centres:
In the Turkish shopping centre 365 regular activities were organised so that local children could learn about subjects such as space and space travel and develop their language skills. Visitors to the centre could also have health checks performed.
Energy-saving light bulbs were handed out to shoppers in the Italian shopping centre GrandEmilia to show them some easy ways of saving energy.
In La Grande Porte shopping centre in France an exhibition gave insight into sustainability. Photographs, images and various interactive media were used to involve visitors in environmental issues. Four classes from local primary schools were invited to find out how they could protect their planet against, for example, CO2 emissions and the excess use of raw materials.
Maremagnum in Spain made space available for various organisations working to integrate young people from various higher-risk backgrounds into society. The Spanish cancer charity AECC was donated space to collect money in the Ruta de la Plata and Gran Turia centres.
During the year various Corio shopping centres in the Netherlands set up temporary ice-skating rinks that school children in the catchment areas could use free of charge. Health checks opportunities were facilitated In some of our centres and a management office was set up in the Alexandrium shopping centre for the officer overseeing the 40 interns undergoing store management training in the centre.
Corio is keen to share its group knowledge and expertise with people living in the shopping centre catchment areas. We have chosen to focus on children as they are in a learning environment where they can readily absorb this knowledge and apply it both now and later on in their lives. Corio’s aim is to inform them about sustainable developing, redeveloping and managing shopping centres and the CSR issues that these activities involve.
All the business units are responsible for working to achieve these targets in 2009.
Source: Annual Report 2008, Chapter Corporate_Social_Responsibility, page 140 (PDF, 160 kB)
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