Operational ecology

At 6,527 kWh per person per year, power consumption in 2005 was slightly higher than in 2004 (6,456 kWh per person per year). But the rate of increase (1.1%) is markedly lower than in the previous years (20.6% in 2004 and 12.3% in 2003). Since 2004, the ratio of owner-occupied property items to leased items has risen further. Parallel to this, the consumption figures have been recorded more precisely, having previously been based on estimates in many cases.

The higher figure for heating in 2005 compared with 2004 (164 kWh as opposed to 149 kWh per heated square metre) is mainly due to the extremely long period of cold weather. The major increase from 2003 to 2004 is attributable to the taking into operation of our two new owner-occupied office buildings at Münchner Tor and the more precise recording related to this.

Our water consumption remained nearly constant compared with the 2004, amounting to 95 l per person per working day (2004: 94 l per person per working day). In the garage for our car fleet, a new car wash was put into operation. It uses less water, power, and chemicals than its predecessor and causes less wear to vehicles’ paintwork.

Paper is our most important working material. The amount of printing and copying paper used by each staff member at Munich Re has again fallen slightly in 2005, to 35 sheets per day (2004: approx. 38 sheets per person per day). For some years now, we have been using bright white TCF paper (total chlorine-free paper, for which the cellulose is bleached without using chlorine) for external correspondence and high-quality recycled paper for internal documents. Recycled paper accounts for 55% of printing and copying paper.

Besides the operation of our office buildings, the business trips undertaken by our staff are of environmental relevance. As a global enterprise that attaches great importance to cultivating relations with clients, we can only reduce such trips — especially flights by our staff — to a limited extent. Videoconferences only offer an alternative in some cases. In 2005, each of our staff travelled an average of 10,659 km by train, car, and plane (2004: 11,179 km), with air travel (35,574,877 km) accounting for by far the largest percentage of kilometres (95.6%). Rail (622,775 km or 1.7%) and car (1,022,445 km or 2.7%) play a comparatively small part here.

The company’s carbon dioxide emissions are closely connected with energy consumption and business trips. We calculate them using conversion factors, especially those of the German Federal Environmental Agency and the Association for Environmental Management in Banks, Savings Banks, and Insurance Companies (VfU). On the basis of the power and heat generated, Munich Re indirectly caused the emission of 15,233 tonnes of CO₂ in 2005, compared with 14,222 tonnes in 2004. We were able to avoid the emission of 17 tonnes of CO₂ by means of our solar installation. The lion’s share of CO₂ emissions from business trips comes from air travel. Here we make a distinction between short-haul flights, which give rise to more CO₂, and longhaul flights. In 2003, we began applying the Radiative Forcing Index (RFI) with a factor of 2.7 in our calculations as a means of expressing the particular impact of air travel on the greenhouse effect. Thus our CO₂ emissions from business trips total around 6,621 tonnes (with RFI: 17,270)

Our environmental management system ensures that even at the purchasing stage, we consider how waste can be avoided. Waste that occurs at the workplace is separated into paper, compostable waste, and residual waste on the spot. Since 2005, we have issued our staff with a leaflet informing them why and how we separate waste and how to avoid it altogether where possible. In 2005, after falling in previous periods, the volume of waste we produced increased again, mainly because the new office buildings we started using in the course of 2004 were recognised for a whole year for the first time. Each staff member produced on average 0.9 kg of waste a day in 2005 (previous year: 0.8 kg).

We favour regional, preferably certified organic products in our staff catering. The percentage of organic products on the menu at lunch averages about 15%. We are keen to increase the proportion of organic products. Regional items account for an average of 80% in terms of the quantity of products used. According to our criteria, "regional products" must be produced within a 200-km radius of Munich. At least one vegetarian meal is always on offer at the staff dining rooms.