Environmental Policy
Background
The Insurance Hall needs to limit its impact on the environment and address climate change for our clients, our company, and the world. Everyone must play their part in this, and as a trusted adviser to companies globally, it is our responsibility to ensure that the growth we deliver is sustainable.
Under our commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have identified three global goals through which we can make the greatest contribution to the environment:
- Responsible consumption and production
- Climate action
- Sustainable cities and communities
We are also committed to the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in the global average temperature to below two degrees Celsius.
To deliver on our commitment to these goals, we have developed a comprehensive package of programmes so that we can:
- Optimise our inputs
- Reduce our outputs; and,
- Advocate for sustainability
The Insurance Hall, part of the Newable Group, have set ambitious targets to reduce our environmental footprint and we rigorously examine our policies and practices to ensure consistency across the business. For more information, please visit https://newable.co.uk/esg
This document establishes and articulates The Insurance Hall’s environmental policy and its constituent business areas in line with our overall ESG Strategy and sets out how we will guide decision-making and behaviour.
Scope
Concern for the environment and promoting a broader sustainability agenda are integral to The Insurance Hall’s public-facing commercial activities and its internal operational framework.
We recognise that achieving successful environmental and sustainability commitments requires active participation and cooperation from key stakeholders. To that end, this policy applies directly to all our employees as well as all third parties, including partners and suppliers, who work with the business or undertake work on its behalf.
Key Principles
To guide its approach to minimising its impact on the environment and addressing climate change, The Insurance Hall has adopted a set of key principles. These principles are that The Insurance Hall will:
- comply with, and exceed where practicable, all applicable environmental legislation, regulations and codes of practice
- integrate sustainability considerations into business decisions and its approach to risk and opportunity management
- optimise and reduce its business inputs across energy, paper and single-use plastics
- assess and minimise its outputs across waste and overall carbon emissions to eliminate waste to landfill and achieve carbon neutrality across business operations
- set targets for, undertake regular reviews on and ensure continuous improvement of environmental and sustainability performance
- implement centralised management to measure and address the environmental impacts of each business area
- communicate regularly on progress and achievements against its environmental commitments
- raise awareness of environmental issues and deliver training and education to employees to encourage responsible behaviour and empower them to play a leading role; and,
- communicate and engage with suppliers, partners and clients to encourage them to adopt equivalent (or superior) sustainability management practices.
Policy
1. Optimise inputs
To optimise and reduce its inputs, The Insurance Hall’s position on the use of energy, paper and single-use plastics is that all business units should endeavour to:
- reduce the energy consumption of existing office equipment, purchase equipment with better energy efficiency and practice good housekeeping at every opportunity; purchase, where possible, electricity from suppliers committed to renewable energy, maximise the proportion of energy from renewable sources and support investment in renewable energy schemes
- encourage staff to walk, cycle or use public or electric transport; reduce travel to meetings through practical alternatives
- revise working arrangements for staff where possible to minimise commuting except from their principal place of residence to their principal place of work; leverage new technologies to provide staff with viable alternatives to paper and deliver associated increases in efficiency and productivity; and
- discourage and/or avoid the procurement of single-use plastics across all activities and operations and revise procurement policies and processes to favour alternatives
2. Reduce outputs
The Insurance Hall is committed to doing its part to limit the rise in global temperature and has set a goal to achieve net zero emissions for carbon in its utility use and transport by 2035. It will achieve this through Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR), which includes reporting on greenhouse gas emissions (in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) and intensity metrics to quantify its impact per employee.
The Insurance Hall will use this reporting and leverage external expertise to fully understand its carbon footprint. We will aim to review and refine our carbon roadmap annually, signed off by the ESG Team to help achieve carbon neutrality.
The Insurance Hall will use the carbon roadmap along with energy efficiency solutions, low-carbon and renewable energy generation and purchase, as well as carbon offsetting to achieve its net zero emissions goal.
The Insurance Hall’s position on waste is that all business units should ensure that most of their output contributes to building a circular economy rather than going to landfill. It will track waste centrally to ensure recovery or recycling across all business locations and encourage the sharing of best practices across the group. We are also committed to sending no waste to landfill by 2035.
The Insurance Hall has adopted the Five R’s principle of Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle on waste production and complies fully with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002.
3. Advocate for sustainability
The Insurance Hall is committed to being a positive influence on the communities in which it operates and will not pollute or cause health issues for those living in those communities or local wildlife through business waste or by-products.
The Insurance Hall will follow the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures as part of its overall approach to risk and opportunity management, and integrate climate change and risk management procedures into the due diligence work conducted by its business-level and group-level investment committees.
The ESG & Sustainability Manager, overseen by the Chief ESG Officer, is responsible for implementing programmes to deliver environmental training and education to staff and increasing the level of communication and engagement to empower positive behavioural changes at work and at home.
In support of this, and in recognition of the importance of being proactive, The Insurance Hall operates a volunteering scheme providing up to 28 volunteering hours for each full-time employee annually and encourages staff to use this to participate in green initiatives. Additionally, the ESG team aims to organise up to two company-wide environmentally related volunteering days per year.
Monitoring and reporting
The Insurance Hall has an impact on the environment through its:
- Use of natural resources and utilities (e.g., electricity, gas and water)
- Production of waste (e.g., general, recycled, organic and electrical)
- Travel (including fuel consumed through company mileage); and
- Suppliers, partners, and clients (i.e., emissions from the procurement and production of goods and services)
The Insurance Hall’s emissions are calculated annually compared to the previous year, and it engages in a rolling 12-month programme to reduce energy consumption, supported by carbon offsetting activities where possible.
The Insurance Hall measures its impact and monitors its environmental performance and compliance using an Environmental Management System (EMS) comprising the following components:
- ESG Strategy
- Environmental Policy (this document)
- Supplier Code of Conduct (and related assurance process)
- Procurement Policy
- Carbon Roadmap
- Environmental Action Plans
- Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR)
- Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)
- Utilities Tracker
- Travel and Mileage Tracker
The Insurance Hall also uses a comprehensive programme of formal assessments and reports as outlined below.
- Once a quarter, the Chief ESG Officer and ESG and Sustainability Manager review a report from the EMS on environmental inputs and outputs at each business location and review related environmental plans
- Once a quarter, The Insurance Hall ESG Team reviews a report from the EMS on environmental inputs and outputs, aggregated to group level, and reviews exception reports giving details of areas of non-compliance (if any)
- Once a year, The Insurance Hall Board reviews a report from the ESG Team on performance against environmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Once a year, an accredited third party reviews The Insurance Hall’s performance against the SECR framework
- Once every two years, an independent body undertakes an internal audit of The Insurance Hall’s approach to the environment and sustainability
Continuous improvement
The Insurance Hall recognises that, in pursuit of its objectives, it has an opportunity to consider and minimise the environmental impact of its activities through continuous improvement.
To that end, The Insurance Hall’s EMS operates on a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle as illustrated below.
To support this approach, The Insurance Hall controls its activities, promotes the use of sustainable resources, and discourages wasteful or damaging practices. It also works with its staff, suppliers, partners, and clients to promote environmentally sound practices and its ethos of environmental responsibility
Management and control
The ESG Team is responsible for reviewing and approving this policy once a year and for communicating it, as and when appropriate, to stakeholders including employees, clients, partners and suppliers.
The ESG Team is supported in this work by:
- the ESG & Sustainability Manager, who is responsible for the practical application of this policy and its related processes and procedures as well as works to raise awareness of environmental matters across the business; and
- the Chief ESG Officer, who is responsible for monitoring performance and compliance
