BMW Group Asia and CapitaCommercial Trust forges sustainability partnership.

*Sustainability efforts translate into action.
*Public electric mobility charging stations to be installed at five CBD buildings.

Singapore – BMW Group Asia and CapitaCommercial Trust today announced that they are entering into a partnership focused on sustainability and innovation, starting with plans to jointly install electric vehicle public charging stations at several CapitaCommercial Trust properties within Singapore’s Central Business District.

The target is to install public charging stations at the following five locations and to commence operations as early as end 2014:

*Capital Tower
*Six Battery Road
*One George Street
*Raffles City Singapore
*CapitaGreen

The planned public charging locations will be made accessible to any electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid driver who is registered with Greenlots, the public charging service provider for BMW i. The venues will be equipped with AC- charging stations that can provide electric cars with a quick charge-up over meals or meetings, as well as a full-charge if the electric vehicle owner has an office in the building.

A fully-charged all-electric BMW i3 (capable of zero tailpipe emissions) can travel up to about 150km of travelling range (as per average EU test cycle). Coupled with a petrol-powered range extender, the range can be doubled to as much as 300km; well beyond the average Singaporean-driving distance of about 55km per day (according to statistics by the Land Transport Authority).

“Sustainability has always been the driving force behind how the BMW Group operates, and we constantly seek intelligent solutions to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions without compromising on sheer driving pleasure, as per our Efficient Dynamics philosophy. As the world’s leading premium automotive brand, we firmly believe that electric mobility is the way forward if we wish to achieve greater sustainability. BMW i is the mobility of the future, and it goes beyond just electric vehicles as BMW i entails innovative inter-modal transportation concepts such as car-sharing, as well as intelligent apps designed to make individual mobility more efficient. Being the first to launch the electric mobility concept in Singapore and Southeast Asia, we hope to inspire others to follow,” said Mr. Ramesh Divyanathan, Director of Sales Channel Development and Customer Relations, BMW Group Asia.

“We are extremely delighted to be collaborating with a sustainability-minded partner like CapitaCommercial Trust on this occasion. Through our combined efforts, we are now a step closer to realising our sustainable electric mobility vision in Singapore,” added Mr. Divyanathan.

Ms. Lynette Leong, Chief Executive Officer of CapitaCommercial Trust Management Limited (CCTML) said: “We are excited about this partnership as BMW Group Asia and CCT are very much aligned in terms of our commitment to sustainability and strong customer focus. It is easy to envisage electric mobility as part and parcel of our lives in the not-too-distant future. Through this first step of introducing electric charging stations at five of our office properties, we are offering this added convenience to tenants who are first movers in the use of electric vehicles. We look forward to more sustainability-themed collaborations with BMW Group Asia in the near future for the benefit of our tenants and the general public.”

CapitaLand, sponsor of CCT, is one of the first Singapore-listed companies to publish its Global Sustainability Report 2013 based on the new Global Reporting Initiative Global 4 (GRI G4) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, ahead of the 31 December 2015 timeline. Meanwhile, one of the annual signature events that CCT organises to promote the sustainability message to its tenants is the CCT Eco Race which will be held for the third year on 27 September 2014.

The Eco Race was featured as an innovative case study of tenant engagement activity in Asia within the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark Report 2014. CCT is also a constituent of FTSE4Good Index Series (FTSE4Good), a series of benchmark and tradable indices designed to track the performance of companies meeting international corporate responsibility standards.

Both the BMW Group and CapitaLand’s sustainability efforts are lauded by Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). The BMW Group is the only car company in the world to have been awarded the world’s most sustainable automotive company for nine years since 2005, while CapitaLand retained its listing in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the third consecutive year and the Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific Index (DJSI Asia Pacific) for the fifth time this year. CapitaLand was also the first Singapore real estate company to be listed in the DJSI Asia Pacific when the index was launched in 2009.