ANTÓNIO MATIAS LOPES
Dear employees, owners, shopkeepers, partners and visitors:
The shopping centers today have their own space in the behavior of the Portuguese modern society. They are, in addition to being leisure and commercial areas, platforms where a multitude of meetings take place: meeting of people and pathways, of cultures and identities, of interests and sustainable solutions.
As shopping centers managers, MMM Portugal believes that the success of its activity in the long term entails the understanding of the system which organizes the city and the (re)discovery of new roles that it can fulfill, in order to encourage the conditions of social, environmental and economic development.
Our ability to attract visitors, to give shopkeepers and partners opportunities to develop their commercial activity and to ensure the owner, on whose behalf we manage the centre, thereturn of his investment, is today dependent on factors external to the shopping centre, but that determine its success.
So we have the ambition to be increasingly closer to the people, know and understand their aspirations and their way of being and living. We also want to be closer to the city: to implementnew points of interaction, to gain the ability to be converted into a city arm, making us a characteristic of its identity.
That's why we manage shopping centers that have the clear goal of boosting the town centers by establishing and building relational, commercial and leisure bridges between people, shopkeepers and organizations that generate and give life to the city. Armazéns do Chiado commercial initiatives with the local commerce, in 2008, the bike lane from Almada Forumto Almada’s city centre, the examples of local shops that expand their business to the centre and then to the rest of the country, constant presence in our centers of local community organizations such as fire department, charities, social support services, among many others, are just some examples that embody this harmonious and organized identification with the culture of the cities where we develop our activity.
To achieve this multiplication of double coincidence of wills inside the shopping centre we assume a professional management which has the responsibility to act in the short term, having as horizon the medium and long term. We take a holistic approach in managing the centre where we guarantee to its owner not only the financial management of the centre, but also the management of all the social and environmental issues that affect its performance, the socio-economic viability of the shopkeepers, the visitors’ satisfaction and the harmonious coexistence with and from the city.
At the current scenario, MMM Portugal also has an added challenge: to satisfy customers and visitors who show a lack of confidence in the institutions and in the economy, with lower purchasing power, with greater environmental concerns and, simultaneously, with greatest social needs. Therefore, when we try to incorporate the principles of sustainability in our activity we seek to understand and respond to a market that expects and demands us new responsibilities and new forms of action.
At the current scenario, MMM Portugal also has an added challenge: to satisfy customers and visitors who show a lack of confidence in the institutions and in the economy, with lower purchasing power, with greater environmental concerns and, simultaneously, with greatest social needs. Therefore, when we try to incorporate the principles of sustainability in our activity we seek to understand and respond to a market that expects and demands us new responsibilities and new forms of action.
The year 2008 was an important year to formalize the approach MMM Portugal sustainability in the management of shopping centers:
- We formulated, together with all our employees, our business principles that outline our way of being in the management of shopping centers;
- We established our sustainability policy, which reflects the expectations of our owners, employees, shopkeepers, visitors, local community organizations and, on the other hand, the key sustainability issues to which society and our peers attach greater importance;
- We created internally a specific and transverse Governance Model that manages and discusses sustainability, and we designed an operating plan with actions and goals for the period from 2009 to 2012.
The greatest value of our strategic commitment to sustainability lies in our ability to positively influence socially, environmentally and economically all our value chain. So we assume as short-term goals to train, to raise awareness, to measure and improve the environmental and social aspects that comprise the management of our shopping centers, as to strengthen them as balanced and organized spaces in the city, offering commercial and leisure services, and that are economically viable in the short and long term.Throughout this report we present practices, actions and results of our approach to sustainability in the management of shopping centers and that in some areas, gives us differentiation in the market:
- On the environmental level, all our shopping centers have environmental management systems, and 8 are certified by ISO 14001. In 2004, Forum Montijo was pioneer in Europe in the environmental certification, opening its doors with this quality assurance in the management of environmental impacts;
- On the local level we have the desire to give people in the community a rapid job search, through employment offers; We seek to attract business from the local community, or entrepreneurs who can provide products and services at the centre and thus encourage the creation of wealth; We open the doors to civil society organizations that offer information and services that support citizens and carry out joint campaigns with local community organizations aiming to develop cultural, social and philanthropic life of the citizens who visit the centre in close liaison with organizations in its community;
- On the economic level, we maintain a close relationship with the owners of the centers and all shopkeepers in order to make the centre economically viable in the short medium and long term. Communicating and interpreting the owners' vision for its active and supporting the shopkeepers in the sustainable development of their business.
Our path to sustainability will be supported by an operating plan that has an ambitious agenda for the next three years and reports regarding its compliance will be delivered annually. We invite you now to consult in chapter "The future of the shopping centres’ sustainable management" the 40 objectives that will guide the actions and performance indicators that make up our operating plan. The fulfillment of this sustainability plan will be driven by us, but carried out together you: owners, shopkeepers, business partners and visitors.
It is with and for you that we want, in a sustainable way, to manage our future.
Matias Lopes
Managing Director Multi Mall Management Portugal
Matias Lopes
Managing Director Multi Mall Management Portugal
