Safeguarding our environment

We've followed the 2019 HM Government Environmental Reporting Guidelines and used the 2020 UK government conversion factors for Company Reporting within our methodologies.

Because of the substantial changes which the business has gone through following the sale of the general insurance business at the end of 2019, we aren’t able to report meaningful comparative metrics for year-on-year comparisons. However, we have seen our energy usage and emissions fall during the year due to some of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. While business travel has dropped to minimal levels following the initial lockdown in the spring of 2020, the impact on buildings will have been less material with our offices remaining open throughout the year. This was so we could facilitate a small proportion of staff working on site for business critical or wellbeing reasons. The majority of our staff have been working from home this year, which has significantly reduced the amount of waste generated at our sites. 

As part of our commitment to the Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) to actively assess and reduce our carbon footprint, we installed a new building management system during 2019 to decrease energy usage at our Bournemouth head office site. The more accurate, smarter and sophisticated heating and cooling management system has made us more energy efficient and will have been another contributory factor in reducing 2020 energy consumption and emissions levels. Currently, other energy efficiency projects are being considered but have been placed on hold until the Covid-19 lockdowns are over.

As we move forward into 2021 and develop a deeper understanding of what the ‘new normal’ working environment will look like for our business, we’ll be able to incorporate this into our environmental strategy and set appropriately ambitious targets to ensure that we continue to do all we can to safeguard our environment.