Sustainable Development

What's happening?
International Agreements such as the Rio Earth Summit and Kyoto have seen nations taking action to mitigate impacts such as global warming.

Climate change is one of the most significant issues facing us all today. Through the consumption of fossil fuels for heating, electricity generation and transportation, CO2 emissions contribute to global warming. The precise effects of climate change as a result of global warming cannot be predicted, but they already include changing weather patterns, extreme weather conditions and the possibility of sudden and irreversible step shifts in climatic patterns.

The Johannesburg Summit in 2002 extended considerations more widely to look at social issues, with the development of social action programmes. One of these areas related to sustainable consumption, which encompasses the concepts of consumer protection and education, in order that individuals can make informed judgements on the relative performance of products and services.

The challenge in a nutshell?
Natural resources are not unlimited and it is essential that businesses manage their environmental impact efficiently. But sustainable development is about more than reducing the consumption of raw materials and limiting negative environmental impact. It also means: ensuring human rights, treating customers, employees and service providers fairly, providing consumer education, and acting responsibly towards the communities in which we operate.

As a responsible business, we seek to ensure that we understand issues of sustainable development and direct our efforts to those that can be most effectively targeted.

Climate Change - Our position
We are committed to reducing our environmental impact including our carbon dioxide emissions and have been committed to reducing our impact for some time. There are various ways that companies can reduce their impact, like offsetting, but we intend to introduce a carbon management programme based on reduction before we consider the prospect of carbon offsetting.

We are focused on reducing our direct emissions, reducing the carbon footprint of our business operations and creating bottom line savings by implementing cost effective energy efficiency measures and, where cost effective, reducing the carbon intensity of our energy supply.

It is also our policy to work in partnership with our suppliers to help them reduce their impact, thereby indirectly reducing ours.

ClimateWise Principles
Prudential is one of 38 companies from the financial services sector to endorse the ClimateWise principles, launched on 13 September 2007. The principles have been developed by leading global insurers, reinsurers, brokers and asset managers to promote action on climate change. They will enable companies and organisations throughout the world to build climate change into their business operations.

The principles have been developed by a working group led by the Association of British Insurers and focus on: encouraging greater climate-friendly behaviour among customers and employees; integrating climate change into investment strategies and risk analysis.