Combining Profit and Purpose: How Real Estate Drives Social Impact

By Leonie Haakshorst, Sustainability Manager at Redevco 

A profound shift has been taking place across the real estate industry in recent years. Success is no longer measured purely by financial return – it’s also about creating places that have a positive social impact and improve people’s lives. 

In 2024, Redevco launched its Social Value Approach, taking a formal step in aligning our long-standing purpose with a structured framework to ensure our projects deliver meaningful benefits for the people and communities they serve. 

What Social Value Means at Redevco 
Our Social Value Approach is built on five key pillars: community needs, employment, procurement, biodiverse spaces, and corporate stewardship. Together, they guide us in our goal to create vibrant spaces that benefit the wellbeing of users and local communities. 

You can see this in action at Promenade Sainte-Catherine in Bordeaux , where a once-busy commercial strip has been transformed into a vibrant destination blending biodiversity with urban culture. Community-led events like Promenade dans le Parc and Ocean Days brought locals together around art and environmental awareness – boosting not just community spirit, but our GRESB score too, which jumped from 51 to 87, proving that social impact and ESG performance go hand in hand. 

In Madrid, our work at Mercado de San Miguel demonstrates how pedestrianisation can do more than reduce emissions, it can transform how people move, meet, and connect. By prioritising people over cars, the city council of Madrid and Redevco together reduced noise and pollution, improved safety and accessibility, and gave local businesses a boost through increased footfall. For the elderly and those with mobility challenges, the increase in comfort and ease has been especially meaningful. 

Embedding social value in everyday decisions 
Embedding social value isn’t just for flagship projects, it’s becoming part of our everyday decisions. In procurement, where appropriate we’re prioritising local SMEs and suppliers who share our social and environmental values. Our updated Supplier Code of Conduct and Human Rights Policy now includes clear commitments to labour rights, including no forced labour or child labour, across the construction value chain – because social responsibility starts long before a building is complete. 

What’s perhaps most exciting is how this approach translates into our growing residential portfolio. As we expand in the living sector, we’re staying tuned in to what people truly want: affordability, a better quality of life, and spaces that support everyday wellbeing.  At our Hollandse Meesters development in Amstelveen, for example, a rooftop garden connects to a nearby public park – an open, inviting design that encourages connection and fosters a sense of belonging in an increasingly compact and diverse urban world. 

A blueprint for placemaking with purpose 
We see placemaking as an ongoing process, not a one-time intervention. Our Social Value Approach gives us the tools to measure, report, and continually improve, ensuring we stay responsive to changing community needs. 

For example, in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, we’ve provided housing for refugees at our Entrada site, a suburban office area in the Amsterdam metropolitan region that will be transformed into a new urban neighbourhood. Together with the municipalities of Amsterdam and Ouder-Amstel, we repurposed one of the buildings to temporarily house 220 refugees.  

As we continue our journey toward more purpose-driven placemaking, we invite our peers – investors, city planners, community leaders – to join us. The challenges we face in urban development, from housing shortages to climate adaptation, require not just ambition but collaboration. By working together, we can turn every development into a catalyst for positive, lasting impact. 

Learn more about our Social Value Approach and other initiatives in our 2024 Responsible Investment Report.