PensionDanmark Biodiversity Strategy
Creating Denmark’s most ambitious biodiversity strategy for 800.000 labor-market fund members and their investments.
Location
Denmark
Year
2022 — 2022
Client
PensionDanmark
Role
Lead Landscape & Biodiversity Strategist
Partners & Collaborators
Andel (Mike Lippert), Aaen Engineering
Challenges
Typology
SLA has developed Denmark’s most ambitious property development biodiversity strategy, aiming for full compliance with EU Taxonomy and a Nature Positive impact by 2030.
PensionDanmark is Denmark’s largest labor-market pension fund, with 800.000 members and more than 30 billion DKK invested in real estate in 2022.
SLA has – together with Andel and Aaen Engineering – developed PensionDanmark’s new Biodiversity Strategy, Investments for Life, covering future investments in urban areas and new constructions. The strategy is Denmark’s most ambitious property development biodiversity strategy, aiming for full compliance with EU Taxonomy and a Nature Positive impact by 2030.
The biodiversity strategy is the first of its kind to cover the entire real estate value chain: From plot acquisition, project development, and design to construction, maintenance, and evaluation.
“High ambitions for quality and sustainability have already proven to be a guarantor of added value in real estate investment. We are convinced that the same applies to the social, biological, and aesthetic value creation that our biodiversity strategy will add to our future projects to benefit the residents' physical and mental health.”
— Mia Manghezi, project development director, PensionDanmark
The strategy makes biodiversity a key criterion when selecting construction sites – prioritizing areas with low natural value to minimize the potential damage to existing ecosystems.
During project development, the strategy calls for the early involvement of biologists and landscape architects to preserve and strengthen natural qualities in specific projects.
In the construction phase, the strategy stipulates separate construction budgets for landscape and nature-enhancing initiatives and prioritization of sustainable building materials with the least negative effect on biodiversity – on-site as well as off-site.
Finally, the strategy devises ways to ensure continuous data collection and evaluation of nature efforts.
PensionDanmark’s strategy also defines the four central values that biodiversity can contribute to real estate development: Biological value, social value, aesthetic value, and economic value. The strategy defines each nature value and its connected ecosystem services and how to apply them in investments and development projects.
Thus, Investments for Life shows that it is possible to combine the highest ambitions and responsibility for life on Earth with sound investments and high returns – today and in 5, 20, and 50 years.
