Fact:

We own one of the largest rural estates in the UK, including 14,000 ha of forestry

Environmental Policy

The Crown Estate is one of the largest property owners in the United Kingdom with holdings across the urban, rural and marine environments. These include such diverse interests as central London offices and shops, Windsor Great Park, tenanted farms and affordable housing, quarries and forests, extensive foreshore and almost the entire seabed within territorial waters

This unique estate carries with it very specific environmental responsibilities and challenges. All operations are managed in accordance with our core corporate values of commercialism, integrity and stewardship

Vision and Commitment

The Crown Estate aims to achieve the highest standards of environmental stewardship in all its activities and has assigned a board member with specific responsibility to realise that vision

Scope

The Crown Estate operates throughout the United Kingdom and will manage its environmental responsibilities and performance, through an environmental management system, across the whole of its property portfolio. The environmental management system will include all activities, products and services over which The Crown Estate has control.  

Policy

It is our policy to:

• Ensure that we are compliant with all relevant legislation, other guidance and best practice principles
• Ensure that environmental impacts are evaluated and managed when developing policy, initiating major development and change, and when reaching key investment/disinvestment decisions
• Seek continual improvement in specific activities and operations that have key impacts on the environment
• Adopt measures to achieve continual improvement of environmental performance and pollution prevention
• Manage and control environmental impacts systematically by setting objectives and targets, monitoring progress, reviewing and auditing performance
• Manage our environmental information and track and report openly our environmental performance
• Work with our stakeholders to improve our environmental performance and minimise environmental impacts
• Ensure that our staff and service providers have the appropriate levels of expertise, are aware of our key impacts on the environment, understand their responsibilities and are committed to applying our policies and meeting our specific objectives

Review

The main board will keep this policy under annual review as part of its wider commitment to sustainability and social responsibility.  This policy is available as part of The Crown Estate’s Freedom of Information Publication Scheme.