Procurement and environmental protection

Hannover Re is committed to keeping negative environmental impacts of its business operations as low as possible. With this in mind, the focus of our efforts is on reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions as we move towards climate neutrality by the year 2015. A major step towards achieving this goal was the implementation of our Environmental Management System at Hannover Home Office in 2012. Shortly after launch it was successfully certified according to DIN EN ISO 14001; its conformity was recertified in this year’s maintenance audit.

We took another step towards our goal of climate neutrality with the construction of a photovoltaic system on the roof of our main office premises in Hannover at the end of 2013. From 2014 onwards all the power that it generates will be fed directly into the building’s own grid. Depending on the actual number of hours of sunshine, the system can generate some 145,000 kilowatt hours of solar power per year, which is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of 42 two-person households. Put another way, this means that approximately 136 tonnes of harmful CO₂ emissions will be avoided each year.

Hannover Re’s carbon dioxide emissions at the Hannover Home Office location amounted to 7,203 (previous year: 4,984) tonnes in 2013, some 44.5% more than in the previous year. In addition to an increased number of kilometres flown on business, the considerably higher level of carbon dioxide pollution can be attributed to a greater need for heating on account of a longer winter.

In 2013, as in previous years, we also offset our absolute CO₂ footprint of 6,859 (4,743) tonnes caused by airline and train travel by making voluntary offsetting payments to the international organisation “atmosfair” and to Deutsche Bahn AG.

The table below breaks down Hannover Re’s consumption and emissions over the past five years.

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