Anchoring Sustainability: Tenant Typology as a Determinant of ESG Performance in London’s Mixed-Use Urban Developments

Mixed-use developments sit at the intersection of urban sustainability and real estate investment, yet the influence of anchor tenant composition on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) outcomes remains empirically underexplored. This study addresses that gap by developing and applying a tenant-sensitive conceptual framework that integrates stakeholder theory with institutional analysis. Using a cross-sectional dataset of 65 London mixed-use estates (1985–2025), we measured ESG performance via a psychometrically validated composite index (KMO = 0.78, α = 0.82) and analysed it using OLS regression. Our findings initially confirm conventional wisdom: office-anchored developments outperform residential-anchored schemes by 6.34 ESG points (p < 0.05, Cohen’s d = 0.55), a 9.3% index gain. This performance differential translates into a material 150–200 bps rental premium and a £2.5–£4.2M annual NOI uplift for a representative £500M asset. However, our central finding reveals that this typology effect is not absolute. The anchor tenant's ESG maturity strongly moderates this relationship (interaction β = –19.07, p < 0.05), demonstrating that residential-led schemes with robust governance alignment can match or even exceed the ESG performance of their office-anchored counterparts. These results offer critical guidance for ESG-driven underwriting, REIT valuation, and urban finance policy, shifting the focus from asset-class generalizations to the primacy of estate-level governance structures.