Responding to the environment

Old Mutual has its headquarters in Cape Town that has been suffering the effects of a severe drought through most of 2004. To ensure that the company cuts back as far as is possible on water and energy consumption, the following steps have been taken:

• R400 000 has been invested in sinking boreholes that will deliver 30 000 litres of water an hour for consumption and maintain a storage of 80 000 litres. This can assist the company in the event of any disaster.
• The air conditioning temperature has been turned up slightly, and the system now runs only on working days. The system operates for different durations depending on the season.
• The fire extinguishing system in the Old Mutual data centre now uses a high fog suppression system rather than a Halogen-based system.

In addition, Old Mutual Properties has installed "Utilman", a web-enabled energy management system that is able to pinpoint energy and water wastage, trend usage of natural resources, and effectively manage municipal utility accounts. "Utilman" has already led to significant savings of natural resources within the Properties portfolio ­ attempts to quantify these savings will be made throughout 2005 for reporting in the next Corporate Citizenship Report.

The following table summarises Old Mutual's natural resource consumption and recycling activities at some of its most prominent properties: