sustainability
at iag, sustainability is about bringing the future into today’s decision making for THE benefit of our business, customers, shareholders and communities.
For an insurance company, the future is even more important than the present.
Our long term viability depends on our ability to calculate risk based on what we believe will happen not just today, but days, months and years from now. Long term thinking is critical to our success.
sustainability
at iag, sustainability is about bringing the future into today’s decision making for THE benefit of our business, customers, shareholders and communities.
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Dow Jones Ranked one of the world's most sustainable companies. We have been ranked a global sector leader since 2006. |
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Global 100 Rated one of the Global 100's Most Sustainable Corporations, World Economics Forum. |
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Carbon Disclosure Project One of only 25 companies included in the Australia and NZ Goldman Sachs JBWere Climate Disclosure Leadership Index in 2007. |
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FTSE4Good A member of the FTSE4Good Index since 2005. |
An independent third party statement by IAG’s Expert Community Advisory Committee (ECAC) that comments on IAG’s performance and emerging challenges in relation to economic, social, environmental and cultural outcomes can be viewed online. ECAC comments on performance against internationally agreed indicators in all four domains, provides advice and guidance, and challenges IAG to be a leader in relation to sustainability, social responsibility, workforce development and financial performance.
For an insurance company, the future is even more important than the present.
Our long term viability depends on our ability to calculate risk based on what we believe will happen not just today, but days, months and years from now. Long term thinking is critical to our success.
Climate change continues to present significant potential risks to the insurance sector. Our collaborative research with the Australian Climate Group this year revealed that the impacts of climate change appear to be arriving sooner and are more severe than the projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Arctic sea ice is melting faster than anticipated, with more rapid consequences for sea level rise, sea surface temperatures and air currents. As a society we need to be prepared to experience more frequent and intense weather events. As an insurer, our challenge is to approach these uncertain risks in a way that is proactive, adaptive and innovative.
This year, we launched several new ‘green’ insurance products through our NZ business (see the NZ sustainable insurance products case study).These products provide our customers with an incentive to reduce their own environmental impact while maintaining the delivery of high quality service and peace of mind for our customers.
We continued to take action to reduce our own environmental footprint in line with our commitment to being carbon neutral by 2012. This year, we have reduced our overall CO2e emissions by 2.2%. This has been achieved primarily by reducing our air travel, and we also continued to actively manage the energy efficiency in the buildings we occupy. Our progress is summarised in the environmental performance indicator table.
Our sustainability is also dependent on balancing our social responsibility to the communities in which we operate, our people and our customers. Socially responsible product innovation in our UK operations saw the launch of insurepink, insurance policies specifically developed to allow people diagnosed with breast cancer access to affordable cover, while also supporting a UK breast cancer charity, the Pink Ribbon Foundation (see the insurepink case study).
Our people are a vital part of ensuring that we are a high performing, customer focused operation. We know that our business sustainability is important to them. In our annual employee survey this year, 72% of our people indicated that they value IAG’s focus on balancing its social, environmental and financial responsibilities. We have found innovative ways to enhance flexibility in our workforce, for example through our programs which encourage working from home (see the working from home case study). Overall engagement remains stable and the initiation of a proactive performance management culture has seen some of our leaders actively working to lift engagement levels within their teams.
We are proud to be included again in the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World and Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. While recognising that these industry benchmarks illustrate our leadership in being a sustainable business, we are committed to continuous improvement. We rise to the challenge of exploring new ways to maintain our leadership position whilst delivering superior experiences for all of our stakeholders and creating shareholder value.
customer and community
performance indicators
Photo courtesy of Fullframe Photographics
We continued to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction in 2008 across our businesses. We are a member of the London Benchmarking Group and are beginning to define our community investment in accordance with their principles.
customer and community
performance indicators
Photo courtesy of Fullframe Photographics
Enlisting help from the National Rugby League team it sponsors, the Brisbane Broncos—with select players starring as the Carbonators—NRMA Insurance went to market in August 2007 with an advertising campaign and product offer that would mobilise Queenslanders to go green with their car insurance.
By offsetting one tonne of carbon emissions for every new comprehensive car insurance customer at no extra cost to customers, the Carbonators campaign not only put climate change front of mind for many Queenslanders, but made it easy for customers to reduce their own carbon footprint.
NRMA Insurance Queensland State Manager Brett Robinson said the initiative made sense for an insurer and its customers.
“As an insurer in Queensland, NRMA Insurance is genuinely concerned about the effects of climate change and its impact on our communities, our business and our customers,” he said.
“Research shows a link between increased global temperature and more severe weather events, and we know that carbon emissions are one of the largest contributors to global warming. Carbonators was a great initiative to differentiate our brand and help our customers better understand their impact on the environment, by giving them a simple means to reduce it.”
As at June 2008, the Carbonators campaign had helped Queenslanders offset the same amount of carbon emissions as removing around 9,000 cars from the roads for one year.
We continued to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction in 2008 across our businesses. We are a member of the London Benchmarking Group and are beginning to define our community investment in accordance with their principles.
| 2008 | 2007 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU | NZ | AU | NZ | |
| Customer | ||||
| Business volume | 11.9m | 2.3m | 11.8m | 2.3m |
| Customer satisfaction | 84 | 87% | 83 | 85% |
| Community | ||||
| Community investment | A$11.6m | NZ$0.7m | A$12.0m | NZ$1.1m |
Employee performance
indicators
A 30 second commute and a $30 saving— it’s all in a day’s work for Suzi Nicolaou.
Suzi, an Insurance Solutions Consultant with NRMA Insurance, is one of a growing band of NRMA Insurance call centre employees who work from home.
Suzi said the change has made a difference to her family and her bank balance.
“It’s made a difference to my family life, especially as I have young children. I can work in school hours and I don’t have to worry about after school care for the kids,” she said.
“I’m also saving up to $30 a day on parking, food and petrol. I’m only working part time so that $30 makes a big difference.”
The program is an important part of NRMA Insurance’s strategy to attract and retain staff in an increasingly competitive employment market.
The employees taking part in the program have access to the same systems as call centre based staff, and interact with NRMA Insurance customers in the same way.
What is different is the level of flexibility they now have.
“The flexibility that I get from working at home is important to me—it’s one of the factors that makes me want to stay in this role,” said Suzi.
Many of our employee indicators remained stable this year. We will continue to implement programs that support the engagement and development of our people.
| 2008 | 2007 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU | NZ | AU | NZ | |||
| Workforce | ||||||
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83% | 90% | 83% | 90% | ||
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17% | 10% | 17% | 10% | ||
| Total head count | 9,909 | 2,072 | 10,185 | 2,106 | ||
| Staff turnover | 20.3% | 20.3% | 19.5% | 22.4% | ||
| Absenteeism | 4.7% | 4.2% | 4.4% | 4.3% | ||
| Employees represented by unions | 13.4% | 47.9% | 15.4% | 52.9% | ||
| Employee engagement | ||||||
| Engagement survey response rate | 78% | 83% | 82% | 90% | ||
| Employee engagement score | 61% | 51% | 61% | 55% | ||
| Representation of men and women | ||||||
| Male to female annual salary ratio | A$1.37:1 | NZ$1.30:1 | A$1.37:1 | NZ$1.28:1 | ||
| Women in senior management positions | 34% | 20% | 32% | 20% | ||
| Women in executive positions | 31% | 25% | 25% | 13% | ||
| Workplace health and safety | ||||||
| Lost time injury frequency rate | 3.6 | 0.9 | 6.2 | 1.2 |
In line with our 2012 carbon neutral commitment, we’ve made progress in reducing our CO2e emissions this year. The biggest savings have been achieved through reduced air travel. We will continue to support initiatives that improve the energy efficiency of the buildings we occupy so that we can reduce our electricity consumption.
environmental performance
INDICATORS
IAG is committed to generating optimal returns when making decisions about how to invest its funds.
We also align our investment philosophy with our broader sustainability framework, and for some of our investments, this means targeting opportunities to support environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
IAG has taken this approach for some years. We were a foundation investor in Generation Investment Management (GenerationIM), established in 2004 by six founding partners including former US vice president Al Gore.
GenerationIM’s International Equity Fund was one of the first to integrate sustainability research within a rigorous fundamental equity analysis framework. We are pleased that our investment in this fund has performed well against benchmarks.
During the past year, through our newly established Sustainable Investment Fund, we invested in a new offering from GenerationIM—the Climate Solutions Fund—which invests in companies that are part of the solution to climate change.
We also invested in the Arkx Carbon Fund, which aims to deliver long term returns for investors while contributing to a low carbon economy, and in a microgeneration wind turbine developer.
We became a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, a set of voluntary and aspirational principles to help incorporate ESG issues into investment decision making. As part of our responsibility as a signatory, we will encourage our external fund managers to sign.
In line with our 2012 carbon neutral commitment, we’ve made progress in reducing our CO2e emissions this year. The biggest savings have been achieved through reduced air travel. We will continue to support initiatives that improve the energy efficiency of the buildings we occupy so that we can reduce our electricity consumption.
| 2008 | 2007 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU | NZ | AU | NZ | |
| Environmental | ||||
| CO2e (tonnes) | 58,306 | 2,911 | 59,376 | 3,200 |
| CO2e (tonnes/FTE) | 6.5 | 1.5 | 6.4 | 1.6 |
| TOT fuel consumption (kL)* | 3,049 | 397 | 2,720 | 392 |
| TOT fuel consumption (kL/vehicle)* | 3.4 | 1.8 | 3.0 | 1.7 |
| Air travel (km millions) | 26.2 | 4.4 | 35.9 | 7.2 |
| Air travel (km/FTE) | 2,926 | 2,173 | 3,894 | 3,526 |
| Electricity (MWh) | 40,197 | 5,416 | 39,521 | 5,594 |
| Electricity (MWh/FTE) | 4.5 | 2.7 | 4.3 | 2.8 |
| Office paper (tonnes) | 320 | 51 | 375 | 58 |
| Office paper (kg/FTE) | 35.7 | 25.6 | 40.6 | 28.6 |
| Print paper (tonnes) | 1,512 | 300 | 1,644 | 198 |
| Print paper (kg/business volume) | 0.13 | 0.13 | 0.14 | 0.09 |
| Recycled waste (tonnes) | 740 | 114 | 653 | 121 |
| Recycled waste (kg/FTE) | 83 | 57 | 71 | 60 |
* In 2008, LPG and diesel have been included in Australian tool of trade (TOT) fleet fuel, in addition to petrol. Previous years reported petrol consumption only.
Co2e emissions profile
This page contains a summary of IAG’s performance against sustainability measures. This content has been independently assured by Net Balance Management Group whose assurance statement can be viewed. Additional information can be viewed on our website.
