Environmental policy

Old Mutual (SA) has developed a group-wide environmental policy framework that seeks to ensure that the company:

• complies with all relevant legislation;
   
• limits consumption of natural resources;
   
• ensures the practice and promotion of effective recycling;
   
• avoids harmful materials in the pursuit of the company's primary businesses;
   
• promotes environmental awareness among staff; and
   
• supports community activities that promote environmental protection and awareness.

Assessing Old Mutual (SA)’s environmental performance

Environmental Resource Management (ERM) was asked to benchmark Old Mutual (SA)’s approach to reporting against global trends and practices in the financial/insurance sector, and to make specific recommendations to improve the approach to reporting and create a relevant environmental strategy.

There are several major limitations to the latest ERM assessment, as follows:

• The scope of the assessment remains limited, as in the previous project, to the two entities that potentially offer most environmental impact. These are the company head office at Mutualpark in Pinelands, Cape Town, and Old Mutual Properties, which manages retail and commercial properties extending over 2.5 million square metres.
   
• Many of the participants in the earlier assessment were not available for this assessment, resulting in continuity and information availability gaps.
   
• The environmental management work being done through the Old Mutual Foundation was not included in the assessment.
   

Performance against the GRI core indicators

Some of the key positive findings of the ERM assessment are as follows:

• Old Mutual (SA) does not appear to have any significant impact on biodiverse areas in terrestrial, freshwater or marine environments.
   
• The most direct sources of greenhouse gas emissions are air conditioners, refrigerators, and back-up diesel-driven generators. All new refrigerators purchased as part of the phase-in of environmentally-friendly facilities use R134 A refrigerant gas, in line with Kyoto Protocol requirements for phasing out greenhouse gases.
   
• None of Old Mutual (SA)’s activities at the head office results in the production of ozone-depleting substances.
   
• The Utilman database developed by Old Mutual Properties includes a record of energy consumption at the major property holdings and has the potential to play a major role in the management of direct energy use.
   
• Water recycling projects have been implemented at key shopping centres, including the reuse of air-conditioning water for fountains and water features. Moreover, Mutualpark does not use excessive quantities of water and encourages water saving in cloakrooms through communication campaigns and on-site posters.
   
• The types of activities undertaken on Old Mutual (SA)’s properties would not result in direct emissions of NOx or SOx.
   
• Old Mutual (SA)’s purchase of filters for the diesel used in its generators prevents the unnecessary dumping of expired diesel.
   
• Mutualpark has also initiated a partnership with Eskom regarding energy use and has made budget provision for an energy consultant to advise on mainly internal lighting mechanisms in the building.
   
• Old Mutual Properties includes specific environmentally-related clauses in the contracts of sub-contractors and monitors their performance through auditing and inspections.

There are, nevertheless, a few challenges that Old Mutual (SA) faces:

• There has been a lack of progress in implementing the recommendations contained in the earlier assessment of Old Mutual (SA)’s performance against the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
   
• It is important to create more comparable statistics of energy and water use, and materials recycled, and to set achievement targets for each, in order to create a worthwhile comparative study of progress made.
   
• Not enough has been done to engage the company's suppliers regarding their protection of the environment.

The report concludes that the consultancy did not identify significant progress against the GRI since the first assessment. The reporters ascribe this to:

• the change in roles and responsibilities of key staff members who participated in the first assessment but not the second, and vice versa;
   
• the general nature of some of the recommendations contained in the first assessment;
   
• the limited scale of both assessments; and
   
• the apparent lack of a more strategic approach to environmental management, so that it is excluded from most daily business activities.

Benchmarking Old Mutual (SA)'s performance against financial sector companies

ERM conducted a comparative desk study of financial sector companies’ sustainability reports using the following categories:

• environmental policy and management;
   
• energy; 
   
• water;
   
• transport and emissions;
   
• recycling/reuse/repair;
   
• land and buildings; and
   
• ecological products and services.

The resulting observations (and implied recommendations) are summarised as follows:

• The South African companies surveyed appear to be far behind the overseas companies surveyed in terms of their strategic approach to sustainability and their monitoring and reporting capabilities.
   
• All the reports surveyed provided a broad overview of the companies’ efforts to monitor and measure environmental performance, but did not convincingly reflect that any of the institutions had strategies that were holistically and integrally part of their business activities.
   
• Old Mutual (SA) can do more to integrate an environmental approach into all its core business lines.

In the main, Old Mutual (SA) compared favourably in the study, but should give thought to a more strategic and holistic approach to environmental management.

The way forward

ERM has recommended that Old Mutual (SA):

• focuses on developing and widening its current sustainability strategy;
   
• creates “buy-in” across the business to ensure a relevant and “living” environmental strategy;
   
• in developing the strategy, factors in global principles, best practice, and a clarification between strategy and reporting; and
   
• broadens the scope of its reporting beyond Mutualpark and the Old Mutual Property portfolio.

The company acknowledges the shortcomings identified by ERM and will be developing an executive response beginning with the tabling of ERM’s recommendations at the Executive Committee level during the year.

Environmental impacts of Old Mutual Properties

The following table summarises Old Mutual Properties’ resource consumption at a selection of its most important sites:

(Click to enlarge)

The following table summarises recycling activities at the same sites:

(Click to enlarge)

Our environmental impact