OUR COMMITMENT

Realty Income is committed to conducting our business according to the highest ethical standards. We are dedicated to providing an engaging, diverse, and safe work environment for our employees, operating our business in an environmentally conscious manner, and upholding our corporate responsibilities as a public company for the benefit of our stakeholders - our stockholders, colleagues, and community.

MATERIALITY

We conducted a materiality assessment in 2020 to identify and prioritize topics to shape our sustainability strategy and reporting. We anticipate undertaking additional materiality assessments in the future.

This process aligned with the GRI Standards and considered topics covered by leading ESG frameworks and questionnaires, industry organizations such as Nareit, SASB Standards, as well as input received from internal company teams. Once topics were identified and prioritized, we utilized a third party sustainability consulting firm to finalize our topics amongst our Board of Directors, executive officers, and employees.

EVALUATING MATERIAL TOPICS ACROSS THREE DIMENSIONS:

1. The significance of current and potential social, environmental, and economic impacts. This analysis considered both quantitative and qualitative factors based on the tests for materiality within the GRI Standards. Resources included the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), GRI Standards, SASB Standards, the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) assessment, leading ESG ratings questionnaires, applicable laws and regulations, sector initiatives and research, and investor guidance, along with company strategy, policies, core competencies, and identified risks and opportunities along the value chain.

2. The importance to stockholders in determining their assessments and decisions about Realty Income. This evaluation of stockholder perspectives incorporated feedback from interviews of cross-functional team members and senior leaders, input from our ongoing stockholder interactions, investor-focused ESG topics of interest, and sustainability reports of peers and clients.

3. The strategy in creating long-term value. We assessed strategic significance based on Realty Income’s purpose, mission, vision, values, and areas of organizational focus along with a mapping exercise to identify key sources of long-term value creation. This systems-thinking approach enabled us to take a more holistic view of the network of topics and their important interconnections.

Our material topics are listed below.

ENVIRONMENT SOCIAL GOVERNANCE
Taking environmental action Strengthening communities Investing in people Upholding operational excellence
  • Direct environmental impacts
  • Water (portfolio)
  • Materials and waste (portfolio)
  • Emissions and air quality (portfolio)
  • Biodiversity
  • Client sustainability impacts
  • Energy use (portfolio)
  • Community support
  • Client health and safety
  • Economic performance
  • Indirect economic impacts
  • Local hiring
  • Diversity, Equality & Inclusion
  • Hiring and retention
  • Training and development
  • Employee engagement
  • Employee health, safety, and well-being
  • Governance
  • Ethical and responsible business conduct
  • Risk management
  • Climate change adaptation/strategy
  • Supply chain management
  • Data privacy and security
  • Investment diligence
  • Regulatory compliance
UNIVERSAL TOPICS
  • Economic performance
  • Stakeholder engagement