Environmental management system

Environmental management system

The Group is gradually rolling out an environmental management system (EMS) for all of its subsidiaries. This system seeks to reduce the company's direct impact on the environment, rally all staff members around a common environmental protection culture, comply with the statutory requirements, and meet the information needs of rating agencies and analysts.

Within this framework, priority Group-level objectives have been mapped out going forward to 2009 (reference base 2005 or later, depending on when the affiliate entered the process):

• Water consumption: 5% reduction per FTE
• CO2 emissions*: 5% reduction per FTE
• Power consumption**: 5% reduction per FTE
• Paper consumption: 2.5% reduction per FTE

* A 5% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions linked to power consumption and business trips is incorporated into the objective to reduce power consumption levels.
** Electricity, heating oil, gas

In addition to these core objectives, a further area for action has been identified:

• More effective electronic waste management, notably in connection with the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive.

Deploying the EMS

AXA has set targeted objectives and implement action plans in order to improve its environmental impact by analyzing and comparing collected data, noting changes and the position of AXA's performances in relation to other financial businesses.

For the deployment of its EMS, AXA set up a taskforce in 2006 with representatives from the Group sustainable development team, external consultants and four pilot countries: France, Germany, Portugal and the UK. These countries have been selected since their activities are deemed to be representative of the Group as a whole. This taskforce tested out the objectives to reduce water, power and paper consumption levels.

In 2007, these objectives were set for eight countries : the four taskforce members and Australia, Belgium, Italy and Spain. These eight countries represented 100 administrative sites and 60% of the Group's revenues. The aim is to roll out the EMS in these eight companies before ramping it up to include other companies covered by the environmental reporting system.

This project was implemented in two phases : identifying the relevant environmental indicators for each pilot business unit to set up a reference base, then providing help in implementing plans of action (visits to the sites, drawing up best practices).

Action plans : a few illustrations

In its various business units around the world, AXA is taking action to save energy, reduce paper consumption and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Here are a few examples :

• IT: AXA Tech (the Group's susbidiary charged with IT issues) rolled out its "Green Computing" program targeting reduced energy consumption and improvements in electronic waste management in 2007. Worldwide, 16,000 CRT screens have been replaced by flat screens, which require far less energy. The shift to virtual servers is poised to reduce energy consumption by an expected 85%.
• Germany: AXA Konzern took advantage of the construction of its new facilities at headquarters in Cologne to set up a system to recover and recycle rain water. In addition, it initiates regular internal email communications campaigns to raise employee awareness on ways to reduce energy consumption (in the workplace and at home).
• Turkey: AXA OYAK has organized a shuttle system to bring its employees living on Istambul's Anatolian side across the river by boat to improve their commuting patterns and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This new AXA OYAK initiative has reduced the number of service vehicles and avoided the equivalent of 17,000 km
• Portugal: AXA Seguros Portugal has a wide ranging best environmental practices drive underway including: waste sorting, battery recovery, paper recycling. Results achieved in 2007 included 44 tons of recycled paper and 115kg of batteries recovered. Paper consumption was reduced by 47% per employee, thanks to new document digitalization procedures, general use of front-and-back printing machine settings and a "think-before-printing-this-email" prevention campaign.
• UK: at AXA UK, twelve employee volunteers became "climate change champions". Their role is to promote best environmental practices in their respective business units. Information sheets have been distributed among all AXA people in Britain, e.g. to help them reduce their personal ecological footprints as well.