Swiss Life wants to make an active contribution to reducing CO₂ emissions. To this end, it has defined measures to make its own business activities more sustainable.
In the context of operational ecology, Swiss Life strives to reduce emissions at its own locations within the Swiss Life Group that are caused by its business behaviour and by its own employees.
Swiss Life aims to reduce its CO₂ emissions per FTE by 35% by the end of 2024 compared to 2019, primarily by cutting emissions from travel and obtaining electricity from sustainable sources. Swiss Life's company buildings are supplied with electricity from renewable sources. As part of its investment cycles, Swiss Life also intends to further reduce fossil fuel use for heating company buildings. These targets are also part of the Group-wide “Swiss Life 2024” programme.
Targets up to 2024
Within the framework of operational ecology, Swiss Life pursues clear goals for making progress in the area of sustainability and making this measurable and transparent for stakeholder groups.
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Sustainability indicators
Swiss Life collects sustainability indicators from its locations as part of a Group-wide data collection process. The exact data is compiled annually and can be found in the Sustainability Report.
Sustainability in business behaviour
Diligence and responsible action constitute the basis for Swiss Life's successful and sustainable business operations.
Measures taken within the Swiss Life Group
A company-wide working group is responsible for designing the appropriate measures, setting the objectives and monitoring them. All divisions are represented by experts in this working group. Each division pursues its own specific measures to reduce CO₂ emissions from its own business activities.
- In Switzerland, Swiss Life is a member of the Energy Model Zurich and has been obtaining all its electricity from renewable energy sources for over ten years. Founded in 1987, the Energy Model Zurich is an association of companies that set themselves voluntary targets for energy efficiency. In setting its new targets for 2020, Swiss Life renewed its pledge to increase energy efficiency at its Zurich location by 1.5% annually until 2030.
- Swiss Life’s head office in Zurich is virtually carbon-neutral. Since the early 1990s, the building has been cooled and heated with water from Lake Zurich. Rainwater is used for sanitary installations at the Zurich business premises. 30% of the energy used for heating Swiss Life’s Binz Center property is biogas sourced from Switzerland. The aim is to continuously increase this share by 2024 in the place of natural gas. Since 2021, Swiss Life been steadily increasing the share of recycled copying and printing paper. Recycled paper as a percentage of total paper consumption is due to increase to 80% by 2024. The paper used by Swiss Life is one of the most ecological labels: it is made entirely of paper fibres from recycled paper, based on a production process that avoids the use of hazardous chemicals. Swiss Life also promotes the use of public transport by providing its employees with season tickets for local public transport operators at reduced rates. In addition, Swiss Life supports cycling and the use of e-bikes by offering discounts on local cycle rental systems. All sites pay due attention to waste separation. There are recycling points on all floors of the operational buildings in Zurich.
- With its operational ecology programme, Swiss Life seeks to make an active contribution to climate protection. This is why it set up the Swiss Climate Foundation in 2008 in cooperation with other Swiss companies. The Foundation supports SMEs in becoming more energy efficient and reducing their CO₂ emissions. Swiss Life active contributes to the Foundation through its chairmanship of the Advisory Board and its permanent seat on the Board of Trustees.
- Since the initiation of the Group-wide “Swiss Life 2024” programme, Swiss Life France has focused on the following four priorities for reducing CO₂ emissions in its own operations: cutting resource consumption and optimising waste separation, reducing CO₂ emissions, increasing employees’ environmental awareness, and involving business partners and suppliers. Numerous measures have been defined for these four priority areas. For example, one of the two Swiss Life France data centres has been outsourced to an efficient data hosting specialist, thereby reducing CO₂ emissions.
- To better manage resource consumption, Swiss Life France has implemented an energy savingplan. The key components of this energy saving plan are the harmonisation of heating and airconditioning temperatures, reduced lighting times, switching-off of hot water in sanitary areas, grouping of teams by floor or building, and awareness campaigns.
- Swiss Life France wants to steadily reduce its paper consumption, in particular through digitalisation projects. During the year under review, Swiss Life France, in collaboration with Lecko Analytics, also developed the GreeT application for measuring the digital CO₂ footprint. Available to all employees, this system measures the carbon footprint of individual and joint consumption in connection with Microsoft 365 applications. Recommendations on responsiblepractices are then provided. As a measurement and awareness-raising tool, it helps to strengthenthe “green IT” approach.
- In order to steadily reduce CO₂ emissions in the sales area, Swiss Life France has drawn up more environmentally friendly guidelines for its own vehicle fleet. The vehicles will be successively replaced with hybrid and electric vehicles after the expiry of the existing lease agreements.
- Swiss Life France has also tightened up its travel guidelines. On the most highly frequented routes involving stays of more than one day, rail must be chosen as the means of transport forat least one journey. In addition, air travel must no longer be used for internal events attended by more than 20 people.
- In Germany, the two main Swiss Life branch offices – in Garching near Munich and in Hanover – have repeatedly been awarded the ECOPROFIT seal for their outstanding commitment to corporate environmental protection. The seal rewards efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions and save resources.
- Swiss Life Germany has also been represented in the “Klima-Allianz der Stadt Hannover” (Climate Alliance of the City of Hanover) network for over ten years and, in cooperation with other companies, undertakes to reduce CO₂ emissions and increase energy efficiency in this urban area.
- In order to further reduce CO₂ emissions, Swiss Life Germany decided with immediate effect to replace the company cars of its Executive Board members and level 1 managers with electric vehicles. The Car Policy, the central set of rules for the company car fleet, was already amended as of 1 September 2022. The cars will be replaced successively as their current leasing contracts expire. In the medium term, this means exchanging around 50 vehicles – equivalent to 100% of the company car fleet in internal services. To this end, charging infrastructure for company cars and employee vehicles has been created at both locations.
- At the Hanover location, the entire lighting system was converted to LED.
- The digitalisation of processes holds great potential for climate change mitigation. This includes use of the e-signature and sustainable application, contract and commission processes. The aim is to make the customer process as independent of time and location as possible in order not only to increase customer satisfaction, but also to reduce emissions caused by paper printing and travel.
- In Switzerland, Livit Ltd has since 2022 replaced all petrol and diesel fleet vehicles with hybrid vehicles.
- Energy from 100% renewable sources is used in Luxembourg and only recycled paper is used for copying and printing. In addition, waste is systematically separated at the recycling points located on all floors of the building. Since 2022, the provision of glass bottles and water dispensers has also reduced the number of disposable and reusable bottles. Moreover, tickets for local public transport services are subsidised by the company.
- As part of internal sustainability communication in Germany, a monthly newsletter is sent to employees in which colleagues present inspiring options for a sustainable lifestyle. In addition, Swiss Life Asset Managers is actively involved in various local sustainability projects.
- A number of sustainability initiatives are also being implemented at other Swiss Life Asset Managers locations. For example, the Oslo office has been certified with the Eco-Lighthouse Label. The Eco-Lighthouse certification system integrates environmental management as well as internal and external environmental measures into the Norwegian regulations on systematic health, environment and safety measures at companies. A further example: in London, waste is separated and recycled and used electronic equipment is donated to charities.
- The Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the UK, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Slovakia work in modern, energy-efficient office buildings. Environmental impact issteadily being reduced in all areas through progressive digitalisation and optimised use of workplaces. The most important measures include reducing paper consumption and waste and encouraging the use of public transport.