Sustainable and Long-term Growth

Housing has become an increasingly scarce and desirable asset in many locations, particularly urban areas. Vonovia wants to help solve this problem by providing modern and attractive homes at fair prices.

Vonovia’s business model is built on three main pillars:

• Letting quality, modern homes at fair prices
• Developing and building new apartments for our own portfolio and for sale
• Providing housing-related services

The Vonovia business model proved to be robust and highly resilient during the coronavirus pandemic. We continued to concentrate on keeping our business processes going, particularly at the start of the pandemic, and on protecting customers and staff. The fact that our business processes were already largely digitalized meant that our back-office staff could continue to work remotely without any disruption. Downtime at construction sites was negligible.

Since 2013 we have pursued a corporate strategy with four basic pillars: property management, portfolio management, financing and value-add. This strategy is reinforced and rounded off by our acquisition and internationalization strategy, which includes opening up selected European markets. The acquisition of Deutsche Wohnen during the year under review was born out of this ongoing sustainable growth strategy. This strategy allows us to leverage new synergies, harmonize processes and make our procedures more efficient.

More information about our 4+2 strategy is available in our 2021 Annual Report under Strategy.

The company has to maintain a robust strategy in this area due not only to the increasing pace of relevant megatrends but also sustainable business models becoming ever more important for a wide range of stakeholders. We want to play an active role in combating climate change by taking a sustainable approach to construction and modification, reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of our real estate portfolio, introducing innovations in the areas of energy supply, (construction) materials and biodiversity, cutting water consumption and reducing waste (see Environment and Climate). Our neighborhoods are where the housing industry needs to focus its efforts in order to be socially responsible. By providing housing in our neighborhoods that meets people’s needs in partnership with our tenants, we will improve customer satisfaction while also making our increasingly diverse society more integrated (see Homes and Customers). Vonovia wants to be an attractive employer which ensures that its employees have equal opportunities, supports them in their personal and professional development and offers positions which are secure and stable (see Employees). We intend to emphasize the sustainability-related aspects of our successful strategy to ensure that both the strategy and business model are fit for the future.