The environmental impacts of our commercial operations are comparatively slight, deriving principally from business trips taken by our employees and their commuting to and from work as well as the operation of our office premises. Nevertheless, we take our responsibility for the environmental very seriously. Through the efficient use of resources and energy we play a positive part in climate change. Operational environmental protection is therefore a major concern for us. In our Sustainability Strategy we regularly define concrete targets and measures for protecting the environment and conserving resources.

With the implementation of our environmental management system back in 2012, which was certified according to DIN EN ISO 14001, we put in place standard processes for dealing with environmental protection and we specified concrete measures in our environmental programme. Certification of the environmental management system according to the revised standard DIN EN ISO 14001:2015 was completed successfully in December 2016. Since 2016 we have published annually a validated EMAS III Environmental Statement in fulfilment of the legal requirement to perform energy audits.

The focus of our efforts to conserve the environment is on reducing CO₂ emissions associated with the supply of electricity and heat to our premises as well as those caused by our business travel. Once again, we achieved our goal of operating on a carbon-neutral basis at the Hannover location to a level of 100%. The changeover to renewable energy in 2012 and the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions caused by air travel through payments to the climate protection organisation atmosfair were key factors in this achievement.

Having already converted our power supply at the German location to renewables, we now want to extend this progressively to our international offices as well. In addition, we make every effort to ensure the economical and resource-saving use of materials and raw materials such as paper and water at our offices. We regularly record central consumption and emissions data for our Home Office in Hannover and constantly seek to reduce our consumption. The same is true of the volume of waste. We monitor our waste disposal according to the type and quantity of waste.

Given that the land used by our company is not located in or adjacent to protected areas, the risk to protected areas and natural habitats is minimal. As a company operating in the insurance industry that uses its premises solely for office work, our offices are normally located in cities or municipalities.

We actively support the work of local and international initiatives for climate protection. For example, we are engaged in a number of environmental conservation projects, including the local initiative "Climate Alliance Hannover 2020" and the "Extreme Events and Climate Risks" working group of the Geneva Association, and we also participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).