We recognise the importance of managing our own carbon footprint, and we are committed to reducing our impact on the environment.
We continue to make reductions in our operational emissions, and we have cut our absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 68% compared to 2019.
Total organisational footprint 2023 - 1,747 tCO2e
- Scope 1 – 296 tCO2e
Direct emissions from Ageas owned buildings including: combustion of natural gas, biogas, gas oil (red diesel) and fugitive gases from air conditioning and refrigeration units and owned vehicles. - Scope 2 – 26 tCO2e
Indirect emissions from generation of purchased electricity, steam heating and cooling for own use. - Scope 3 – 1,426 tCO2e
Value chain activities including purchased goods and services, capital goods, fuel and energy related activities, transportation and distribution, waste generation in operations, and business travel.
Our buildings
We continue to make further reductions in our operational emissions with the energy used in our building coming from 100% renewable sources.
By reviewing our workspace requirements, we have consolidated offices over the past 12 months we now occupy less floor space, enabling us to reduce plant equipment runtimes and lighting in unused office areas. The result is less energy consumption and a more connected, dynamic working environment for our people.
Where it is possible to do so, we are also progressing towards consolidating our data centre activity and migrating services to the cloud.
Our IT and facilities teams have collaborated to achieve timely reductions in the level of cooling provided to our data centres as demand increases. These efforts significantly impacted electricity consumption in our Bournemouth and Gloucester offices, where we have decommissioned much of the data centre infrastructure.
We aim to drive a continuous year-on-year reduction in our energy consumption. In 2023, we achieved the following reductions vs. 2022:
- Gas - 28%
- Electricity - 23%
- Water - 15%
Reduce, reuse and recycle
We continue to look for new ways to reduce our waste. Zero waste goes to landfill because we send office waste that we cannot recycle for recovery to an energy-from-waste plant.
We have saved paper and materials by enabling customers to choose email for direct communications or digial marketing rather than printing them and sending them by post. We also reuse or repurpose the majority of our promotional displays and show stands. For the past five years we have reused and/or repurposed 85% of our stand for the British Insurance Brokers Association conference, and we choose sustainable and recyclable merchandise.
Reducing our need for travel
We continue to reduce carbon emissions and environmental impact through imaginative initiatives like Smart Working @ Ageas. This hybrid and flexible working policy for colleagues means less commuting and fewer car journeys.
Another way that we travel less is by using video technologies instead of holding face-to-face meetings. We also encourage people to cycle to work or use a lease car scheme for electric vehicles and hybrids, having installed electric car chargers in our offices.
Offsetting our carbon emissions
We have been certified as a CarbonNeutral® company by Climate Impact Partners since 2021, supporting projects which provide long-term environmental and social impact benefits to their communities.