The chief operating officer of German real estate consultancy Drees & Sommer believes in spending a significant percentage of the firm’s earnings on both technological innovation and audacious ways to tackle climate change.

The Innovation Hub in Stuttgart where Property Week met with Szeidl is an illustration of this. The site opened in January this year as a place for the company to work on new ideas. The hub, which is one of several that Drees & Sommer has built around the globe, is used by its own staff as well as those of other companies.

The company’s aim is for the hubs to be used to develop new technologies and services that will have quantifiable business results. To foster innovation, it wants people to feel free to come up with new ideas without the fear of failure.