Legal & General announces that it has signed up to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) Construction Protocol on behalf of its real estate portfolio businesses, further demonstrating its commitment to stamp out Modern Slavery and advance the human rights agenda across the sector.
20 Aug 2020
Signatories of the GLAA protocol are committing to the prevention of exploitation or abuse of workers, taking the necessary steps to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure that exploitative practice does not occur.
The new GLAA commitment promotes best practice across the industry. This further governance step demonstrates Legal & General’s broader motivations to continue to transform the building and construction sector, and align its output to key ESG criteria. As has been demonstrated by the Covid crisis, safeguarding our health and wellbeing is paramount. With the signing of this new protocol, Legal & General is outlining its commitment to the safety of its employees and businesses, accelerating its drive to deliver better, fairer, and future-proofed societal impacts.
Legal & General continues to sit at the forefront of ESG within the property sector. This latest Group initiative represents one of many commitments it has recently made to accelerate the ESG agenda. In June, Legal & General announced that it is to make all of its new housing stock operational net zero carbon enabled by 2030, implemented in a phased approach across all homes invested in or built by Legal & General Group including: Build to Rent, Build to Sell, later living and affordable housing. Within the commercial property sector, Legal & General is aligning its platform with science-based carbon performance targets, covering the period to 2030, as it looks to move towards a net zero future. With an existing clean energy investment portfolio, which includes low carbon heat, transport and power generation, Legal & General continues to scale up its investments in addressing decarbonisation. Earlier this year, Legal & General Capital announced a 36% stake in The Kensa Group, one of the UK’s largest players in the ground source heat pump technology sector, which followed an increased stake in Pod Point, one of the UK’s largest electric vehicle charging companies.
Sara Heald, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility: "Through the GLAA Modern Slavery protocol, we are promoting a necessary sector wide shift, exemplary of our Group-wide inclusive capitalism philosophy. As one of the largest managers of real assets in the UK, Legal &General has a responsibility to invest in a more resilient and responsible future. To be able to invest in and create socially and environmentally impactful assets, the business must ensure that it commits to a robust ESG and human rights agenda, in order to support the UK in building back better. It is essential that all businesses take the appropriate steps to investigate and report matters such as worker abuse and exploitation, where we have the opportunity to create true tangible difference. I am proud of how the various L&G property businesses have worked together to commit to this important protocol and demonstrate significant accountability, as we look to transform the sector."
Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the UK's leading financial services groups and a major global investor, with £1.2 trillion in total assets under management1 of which 40% is international. We have a unique and highly synergistic business model, which continues to drive strong returns. Legal & General provides powerful asset origination and management capabilities directly to clients, which also underpin our leading retirement and protection solutions. We are a leading international player in Pension Risk Transfer, in UK and US life insurance, and in UK workplace pensions and retirement income. Our purpose is to improve the lives of our customers and create value for our shareholders. Through inclusive capitalism, we are investing in long-term assets, such as real estate and infrastructure, that can help build a better society for the future.
1Data as at 31 December 2023.