Combating Global Warming

Allianz Australia has joined Australia’s efforts to reduce global warming by taking steps to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. We are members of Greenhouse Challenge Plus, the national programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Australian industry.

Under our agreement with the Australian Government, we have made a commitment to take specific steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

We are aiming to abate the emission of greenhouse gases from our operations by 20% per cent by 2012 (based on 2006 emissions) through avoiding, reducing, substituting (ie use of Greenpower) and/or offsetting our emissions.

Most of our emissions are generated from electricity, travel and paper consumption.

Some of our recent and current emissions reduction initiatives include:

• the completion in 2007 of a redevelopment of The Allianz Centre, our headquarters at 2 Market St, Sydney, that involved the construction of a new office building that has a 4.5 Star Australian Building Greenhouse Rating;
• the refurbishment over 2007 and 2008 of our existing tenancy in The Allianz Centre to reduce emissions through measures such as more energy efficient floor designs, and lighting and power systems,
  • for example, the installation of lighting movement detectors and the roll-out of software that automatically shuts down computers at night;
• the further expansion of the use of Toyota Prius Hybrid Petrol-Electric vehicles and the piloting of the use of E10 (ethanol-based petrol) in our vehicle fleet; and
• initiatives to further reduce paper use and increase paper recycling.

Greenhouse Challenge Plus is implemented by the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

As a Greenhouse Challenge Plus member, we prepare and maintain an inventory of our emissions, develop action plans to abate those emissions and regularly report our progress to the Australian Government. We also agree to be open to independent verification of our records.