26 Environmental, Social and Governance Report 2022 PILLAR 1: HUMAN CENTRIC Charity bike build event at ARA Europe At an off-site team building event, the ARAE team participated in a charity bike building exercise organised by o3e, a UK based BCorp Certified team building and events company. Team members were split into small groups and attended a knowledge session to learn how to assemble a bicycle using the supplied parts. Following the knowledge session, the bikes were put together by the respective teams in 2.5 hours. All completed bikes were delivered to the facilitator who scrutinised the build and mechanics. Once the safety checks were completed, the bikes were donated to Coram, a leading children’s charity in the UK, to give to families during Christmas. ARA Europe, charity bike build event Community Investment “Happiness Box” social contribution programme at ESR Korea We participated in the “Happiness Box” packaging programme, a social contribution platform initiated by SK Group to address the issue of malnourished children in South Korea. Together with “Happiness Alliance,” a social contribution coalition, we carefully selected nutritious snacks and various products to pack in the “Happiness Boxes”. Through this initiative, the packages were delivered to 600 underprivileged children nationwide who were at risk of malnutrition. Increasing access to homes — Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme Following a competitive public procurement tender process in October 2020, ARA Venn was appointed by the UK Government to manage a GBP3 billion Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme (AHGS). The purpose of the scheme is to finance social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership housing to support the delivery of around 17,000 new affordable homes in England. Our responsibility is to establish and manage the scheme, including the origination, underwriting and ongoing management of the loans and the development and management of a government guaranteed bond programme to fund the loans. By the summer of 2022, the AHGS made around GBP400 million of 30-year loans to eligible borrowers, with an extensive pipeline of future loans. The bonds issued to fund the loans, which are also guaranteed by the UK Government, were competitively priced. This enabled cheaper finance to be directly passed onto borrowers, thus supporting the supply of new affordable homes to their local communities.
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