Aviva 2009 Annual Report Download - page 73

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Performance review
Aviva plc Corporate responsibility continued
Corporate responsibility
Annual Report and Accounts 2009
its sale in October 2009. The data excludes Auto Windscreens
and Aviva Global Services (AGS) which were sold at the end
of 2008.
We also set global annual targets in other key areas,
summarised below:
Performance
– accounting
for
2009 Targets divestments
Reduce CO2 emissions by 5%* (5.2)%
Reduce water use by 4% (8.8)%
Reduce waste by 4% +9.6 %
Increase percentage of recycled waste by 2% (until 80% recycled rate
is achieved). (15.0)%
* We also offset 105% of our remaining emissions by investing in sustainable projects such
as renewable energy generation and small-scale run-of-river hydro electricity systems.
All performance data is calculated on a like-for like basis taking into account new acquisitions
and divestments in 2009.
We continue to pursue our goal to incrementally reduce our
carbon footprint on an annual basis. We have also set out a
long-term carbon reduction target to help focus our businesses’
environmental strategies. By 2020 we aim to reduce our carbon
emissions by 30% from our 2006 baseline.
The role of insurers in climate change
The insurance industry has a fundamental part to play in
society’s responses to climate change. As a major insurer Aviva
has first-hand understanding of the impact of extreme weather
events on our customers. On their behalf, we are committed
to help mitigate the threat of climate change and support
everyone in society to adapt to changes caused by man-made
emissions already in the atmosphere. Our industry can also draw
on its knowledge of historical weather data to identify patterns
of change, applying our understanding of risk to map future
temperature scenarios and determine likely impacts. Finally,
we can offer the financial tools to help manage the burden
of climate change, for example the pooling and transfer of risk.
We believe that climate change must be tackled now.
As extreme weather events become more frequent and more
severe, they become more challenging to insure. It is in
everyone’s interest that insurance remains affordable and
available so that people affected from severe weather events
can recover quickly from unavoidable impacts.
Our actions and commitments
Proactive participation in leading global forums and associations
is a key part of our climate change strategy. This year we were
involved in the lead-up to the Copenhagen Summit in
December 2009 through our membership of working groups of
the UNEP Finance Initiative and as signatories to the following:
— The Geneva Association Kyoto Statement
— The UNEP FI Investor Statement on a Global Agreement on
Climate Change
— The ClimateWise Statement for Copenhagen
— The Corporate Leaders Group Copenhagen Communiqué
Our senior executives also take the opportunity to engage
personally and as widely as possible on climate change and
other environmental issues. In September, a senior delegation
including Carole Piwnica, chair of our Board CR Committee,
Euleen Goh (Aviva Group Board member) and Simon Machell
(CEO Aviva Asia Pacific) led a roundtable discussion in Hong
Kong with NGOs, corporates, academics and students from
Hong Kong University. The event included strong debate on the
climate change agenda and Aviva’s role in making a difference,
providing valuable perspectives that are being shared within the
organisation. The group also visited the Aviva Junk, a ‘green’
Chinese sailing vessel, developed in collaboration with Hong
Governance
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Kong University. Launched in March 2009, the Aviva Junk
incorporates a number of renewable energy efficient
technologies and is being used to host educational tours as part
of our environmental awareness programme in Asia Pacific.
Raising our employees’ levels of engagement and
participation in environmental projects is an important part of
our efforts to encourage good practices, both at work and at
home. Many of the employee volunteering activities that took
place around the world in June as part of our celebrations to
become ‘One Aviva’ focused on the environment, including a
recyclathon and a series of tree planting events. We publish
regular articles and updates on environmental matters on our
global intranet site and, in November, teamed up with our
environmental partner ClimateWise with an interactive, web-
based project to give employees the chance to have their say
on risks and opportunities associated with climate change and
the insurance industry.
As part of controlling and reducing impacts within Aviva,
telepresence video conferencing has proved to be a significant
asset. By implementing this technology and reducing domestic
and international air travel we have made cost savings,
promoted work-life balance and reduced our carbon footprint
from air travel by 5% in 2009. In 2010 we plan to increase the
number of facilities available to make telepresence a regular
part of business and extend our capacity by using some of our
suppliers’ conference facilities. In the UK our proactive work
on climate change was recognised when we gained
accreditation to the Carbon Trust Standard. The standard is a
key milestone for Aviva as it is an early action metric that will
count towards the UK government’s new Carbon Reduction
Commitment regulation.
We are both a signatory and responding company to the
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and this year were ranked
eighth in the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for the
FTSE350, third in the financial services sector and 38th overall
in the FSTEGlobal 500. Our Chairman, Lord Sharman, spoke at
the CDP London launch event and called on industry to provide
more consistency and transparency in reporting and move from
disclosure to mitigation.
Our environmental planning is now being extended to our
partners, and, in a first move for Aviva, we signed a ‘green’
service level agreement with Hewlett Packard (HP) for the
provision and running of two data centres. As a key part of the
contract, HP is charged with using ‘eco friendly’ or renewable
power sources to run the centres, develop an environmental
management system, conduct audits and hold an annual review
with Aviva to assess progress, set targets and investigate new
technologies and processes.
Customers
With customers’ confidence in financial institutions shaken
by the global economic downturn, it was as important as ever
before to remain true to our purpose of providing prosperity
and peace of mind. We continued to work to understand
perceptions and needs in our markets and once again
conducted our wide-ranging annual survey on worldwide
consumer attitudes to savings, using the results to inform
ongoing product and service developments across the Group.
The Net Promoter Score ®1 (NPS) is our leading, Group-
wide measure of customer advocacy, comprising a globally
consistent relationship and benchmarking survey which is
regularly conducted. We continued to extend this across our
global operations and next year will develop the metric further
1 Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc.,
Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.
Corporate responsibility