Lloyds TSB Group PLC
From Lauraibm
Contents |
Lloyds TSB and the Environment
Banks have a direct impact on the environment and can affect it indirectly through the actions of their borrowers.
Effective environmental management reduces business risks, cuts costs and improves our efficiency. Our staff expect us to reduce our impact on the environment where possible and be a force for environmental good. We commit to reduce our total carbon emissions by 30% by 2012, and then offset our remaining emissions. (1)
Environmental Policy
The Lloyds TSB Group is a leading UK based financial services group whose businesses provide a comprehensive range of banking and financial services in the UK and overseas. It is a customer driven, service business.
Our potential impact on the environment stems from office-based operations and, to a large extent, this dictates where the bank can make progress in improving its environmental performance. Key areas where we can focus attention are property management, purchasing and contracts and lending activities.
We will:
- Minimise the amount of waste we produce by raising staff awareness and encouraging the recycling of office waste, such as paper and plastics
- Cut the amount of energy we consume by continuing to use energy-saving measures and by following recognised guidelines and codes of practice in our property management
- Incorporate specific environmental requirements into contracts with principal suppliers
- Wherever practicable, specify products from sustainable sources, products made from recycled materials or designed to be easy to re-use or recycle
- Continue to provide detailed guidelines to lending officials which will help them identify environmental risks in the UK and abroad
- Comply with all relevant environmental, health and safety regulations and legislation
- Report publicly on our environmental management
These commitments are backed by a programme of continuous assessment, checking our achievements against targets and seeking opportunities to raise awareness of environmental policy amongst our employees. Board responsibility for our environmental policy rests with our Deputy Group Chief Executive. This policy will be reviewed on a regular basis and revised as appropriate.
(2)
Corporate Responsibility Review 2006: The Environment and Banking
How taking small steps is an essential part of the long journey to a better environment and a safe climate.
Can we really save the polar bears by switching off the lights? The sheer size of the environmental problems posed by climate change tend to trivialise small actions to protect the environment. But every action, no matter how small, is badly needed if we are to contribute to making a better environment.
With over 2,000 buildings housing more than 63,000 employees, our direct environmental impacts come mainly from energy use (air conditioning, computer systems, lighting) business travel, paper use and office waste.
All our major buildings have comprehensive environmental management systems in place, conforming to our environmental policy. We monitor energy consumption at all times of the day and night, using our “smart metering” system that gives us online readings every half hour. This enables us to monitor energy use and to identify any abnormal patterns or faults with the automated management systems.
Most lighting systems automatically switch off after people have left the room. Staff are required to switch off their computer screens at the end of the day. It is estimated that a tonne of carbon can be saved in 10 weeks if an office of 200 people turned off their screens overnight.
As director of Group Operational Services and a member of our Corporate Responsibility Steering Group, Ian Thompson has more responsibility than most to see that our commitments on the environment are met.
“Setting ourselves stretching targets is nothing unusual. But meeting our goals is much easier when there is a passion in our people to get there.
“Our people are certainly passionate about the environment. This was demonstrated last year when our employee CR magazine, Workout, challenged people to calculate their own personal carbon footprint. The response was tremendous and people were quite surprised at the results. Even those who travelled little and were careful about their household energy use were shocked to see the amount of carbon they emitted.
“People need to be convinced that simple prescriptions on saving energy, water, and waste and avoiding travel is enough in the face of climate change. And, of course, in itself it is not. But you have to start somewhere and every little bit does count.
“Small actions have helped us make significant improvements over the last five years and these actions will be vitally important over the next five.
“Personal effort gets translated into how we operate as a business. And it is in that thinking – about property, purchasing, processes, operations and IT – where we will see the step-changes necessary to reach our targets.”
Action from Lloyds TSB
Rather than simply offsetting, we feel it is better, first of all, to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by better energy management, buying renewable energy and cutting out unnecessary travel.
Our carbon footprint
We have progressively reduced our carbon footprint over the past five years by almost 36,000 tonnes of CO2. This was done mainly by improving our properties and by buying renewable energy. The amount of travel rose during that period as our business grew. But in 2006, over 250,000 teleconferences helped us reduce car and train travel by 20 million kilometres, or almost 500 round the world trips.
We want to build on our strong track record and make a positive contribution to the UK government’s target to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050. Using 2002 as the baseline, we have set a target to reduce our CO2 emissions by 30% by 2012.
This will be achieved by a series of different measures, such as carbon management. In 2006, we carried out a study with the Carbon Trust – a government agency promoting energy saving – to develop a carbon management programme that will save 4,300 tonnes of CO2 a year, over the next five years.
Having first of all set ourselves a reduction target, we will offset those emissions we cannot reduce, commencing in 2007. This will make our operations carbon neutral.
While climate change provides many challenges, it opens a range of business opportunities, such as the provision of project financing in the fast-growing market for renewable fuels. We are developing a strategy to ensure that we contribute to finding solutions to climate change. One of these will be to work with our 63,000 employees and 16 million customers to ensure that we all take the small but important steps on what will be a long journey to a safe climate.
C&G Travelshare scheme Employees in the administration offices of Cheltenham & Gloucester (C&G), part of the Lloyds TSB Group, can reduce their personal carbon dioxide emissions by participating in the C&G car share scheme.
The names of those who sign up are posted on a travel information point. This provides information on working times and travel routes, allowing employees to make their own arrangements with those who live nearby. Special incentives are given to encourage take-up including an entire week of free lunches in the staff canteen.
Currently there are 74 reserved ‘green’ parking spaces split across two sites, with nearly 90% taken up. The spaces are monitored to ensure proper use, and people can nominate a car share cover partner, ensuring even wider participation in the scheme.
What is climate change?
Gases in the atmosphere prevent some of the sun’s heat radiated off the earth from escaping back into space. These gases create the natural phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect, keeping the world warm enough for us to survive. Increased concentrations of so called greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, has boosted the greenhouse effect, making the world warmer. This is causing changes to our climate, with unpredictable weather, more droughts in some regions and floods in others.
The consensus among scientists is that man is responsible for much of the rise in the concentrations of greenhouse gases. Politicians worldwide are taking action to attempt to stabilise and eventually reduce these concentrations.
There are five main actions being taken:
- Use less energy by being more efficient and changing behaviour (turning off unneeded lights)
- Switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, such as the sun and wind
- Stop destroying forests and reverse deforestation
- Prevent emissions from reaching the atmosphere, for example by capturing and storing carbon
- Offset emissions in one place by investing in projects that prevent, reduce or absorb emissions elsewhere, such as growing trees and landfill methane flaring.
A number of companies have declared themselves to be carbon neutral. This means they have no net impact on the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Offsetting forms a major part of their actions, although there are concerns about the effectiveness of many offsetting activities. Companies that simply use offsetting without making any reductions to their actual emissions will increasingly be accused of using carbon neutrality as a public relations exercise.
(3)
Corporate Responsibility Report: The Environment
Lloyds TSB first introduced a formal environmental policy in 1996 and was also one of the first UK banks to develop an environmental risk assessment system for all of our business lending. Climate Change The UK Government has stated its belief that climate change is the greatest long-term challenge facing the world today. Measures to tackle climate change will have potential implications for regulation, taxation and public policy and will carry both risks and opportunities for companies and the public. In respect of our own direct environmental impacts, our immediate priority is to reduce our carbon emissions. We have introduced a 5-year carbon management programme, a series of energy saving projects and other initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint. We have a target to reduce property related emissions and identified other opportunities in relation to waste reduction and business travel. While our direct carbon intensity is relatively low compared to other industry sectors, we still need to fully understand the potential financial impact of climate change on others that we may lend to or invest in, so that we can manage the risks and identify business opportunities. We established a Groupwide Climate Forum, led by the deputy group chief executive,to develop a holistic approach to managing climate related risks and opportunities. Using 2002 as the baseline, we have set a target to reduce our CO2 emissions by 30% by 2012. Having set this reduction target, we will offset those emissions we cannot reduce. This will make our operations carbon neutral.
Environmental Direct Impacts 2006 has seen an overall increase in electricity consumption although a corresponding fall in gas and oil consumption has limited the overall increase. Following the transfer of the management of the C&G property portfolio to the Group’s central property team in January 2006, poor utility billing and anomalies with estimated accounts had to be corrected. These have now been remedied but this will have contributed to the apparent rise in electricity consumption. The introduction of our carbon management programme will allow us to take positive steps to reduce consumption. (4)
