Controlling our impacts

We’re exploring every opportunity to control environmental impacts from our operations, including greenhouse emissions and natural resource usage.

Our main operational impacts are:

Greenhouse gas emissions. We control emissions through our carbon reduction programme, which includes energy-efficient technologies and renewable electricity.*
Waste. We control waste through an ongoing programme of reduction, reuse and recycling – including a new state-of-the-art recycling process introduced at Aviva USA headquarters, and with the support of employees across Aviva.
Resource usage (water, energy, paper). We control our consumption of natural resources through our facilities, equipment, technologies and processes and by involving employees in efficient use.

* For a number of years Aviva has paid a premium of up to 2% to purchase renewable electricity. In line with our stated policy, we only purchase this where it is recognised as zero carbon and therefore of benefit to the Company. From 2008 renewable electricity is no longer counted as zero carbon in the UK, therefore we have reverted to sourcing best value grid-average electricity in 2010 and have compensated for this by purchasing additional Gold Standard and Voluntary Carbon Standard carbon credits from the voluntary carbon market.

Performance and targets

Greenhouse gas emissions – 4% reduction since 2009. Our long-term target is to reduce our carbon emissions by 30% by 2020 from the 2006 baseline. We are on track, with a 10% reduction achieved from 2006 to 2010.
Waste – 2% increase in overall operational waste since 2009. Our long-term target is zero to landfill for UK operations by 2015, and worldwide by 2020.
Water consumption – 15.2m³ per employee, compared to the UK best practice benchmark of 7.7m³. Our long-term target is the best practice benchmark.
Energy intensity – total cost of buildings-related energy in 2010 was £17.7 million (2009: £17.7 million).
Paper – consumption of paper has increased by 29% since 2009, 44% of the paper has a percentage of recycled content.
During 2010 there were no environmental incidents as a result of our operations (2009: zero).

Read about group initiatives to control our operational impacts.

Report tools

Aviva also reports its impacts through the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Aviva is a founder member and signatory of the CDP, which calls for fuller reporting of corporate footprints. Our 2010 CDP score is 70.