CBRE: Communities and Giving

Sep 7, 2017 10:05 AM ET

In 2016, CBRE and its employees donated nearly $13 million to charitable organizations around the world. Our recently released CR Report highlights the company’s community involvement initiatives in each of the regions where we operate.

In 2014, CBRE’s EMEA business entered into a partnership with international children’s charity, Plan International. Our first project together focused on providing an education to girls in Sierra Leone. Our teams across EMEA raised over €1.2 million ($1.26 million) in corporate and employee donations for this partnership from 2014-2016. CBRE’s funds unlocked a further U.K. government grant of €9 million ($9.48 million), which significantly multiplied the strength of the project. The partnership involves CBRE colleagues in more than 100 offices and 30 countries throughout the region participating in fundraising and other activities. This includes the EMEA annual charity bike ride, during which more than 100 employees and clients cycled 650 km from France to Italy in June 2016, raising over €115,000 ($120,000).

CBRE continued to make a significant impact across the United States through the efforts of our individual offices supporting meaningful causes in their local communities as well as four initiatives – Shelter Program, Matching Funds Program, National Shoe Collection and Birthday Cakes & More for Homeless Children. In 2016, the CBRE Foundation donated a total of more than $598,000 to hundreds of organizations across the country that our employees supported financially through our Matching Funds Program. Throughout the past six years, CBRE has provided over 100,000 pairs of shoes to people in need around the world through our National Shoe Collection program. In 2016, 109 CBRE locations collected nearly 13,000 pairs of shoes that were donated to Soles4Souls.

As the largest philanthropic event in APAC, Walk for a Wish supports CBRE’s commitment to social responsibility by bringing teams of employees, clients and vendors together from each business line in order to raise funds for various charitable causes in each participating country. In 2016, the 10-kilometer Walk for a Wish was held in 15 locations across Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. Initiated in 2010 by CBRE’s Asset Services team in Australia, the event has raised more than $1.4 million over seven years, including more than $384,000 raised by more than 2,000 participants in 2016.

Learn more about these programs and other Communities & Giving highlights in the 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report.