ClimateWise 2010 Case Study: QBE CRES Environmental Reporting

ClimateWise Principle 5: Reduce the environmental impact of our business:

• Measure and seek to reduce the environmental impact of the internal operations
and physical assets under our control
• Disclose our direct emissions of greenhouse gases using a globally recognised
standard

Corporate Real Estate Services (CRES EO) has primary responsibility for identifying, monitoring,
reducing and reporting environmental impacts from our physical assets and internal activities.

QBE European Operations began to compile environmental key performance indicator data during
2007. Since 2008, CRES EO has developed and implemented a management system throughout all 78
of our European offices, now covering more than 2,600 QBE employees in 17 countries.

This system monitors a range of environmental key performance indicator data including: energy and
water consumption, business travel (air, rail and company vehicles) and fugitive losses of refrigerants
from systems owned or controlled by QBE. Since its introduction, we have continuously sought to
improve the system:

• We work with a qualified and experienced external consultant on an on-going basis, as this
allows quarterly data assurance;
• The scope of reporting was expanded in 2009 to include reporting of office paper consumption.
• QBE’s European Operations Environmental Reporting format was adopted as standard by
QBE Group and applied globally throughout the company at the start of 2010.

Data is used for public reporting, to support decision making and help identify opportunities to improve
environmental management:

• Data is compiled on a quarterly basis, with data gaps,

limitations and opportunities for improvement
identified in quarterly reports that are issued to
reporting offices and our head office in Australia;
• Data has been used to compare performance
between offices and benchmark performance against
external standards. This process of internal and
external benchmarking has improved our
understanding of the company’s environmental impact
and will allow identification of best practice and
support development of initiatives to reduce adverse
impacts;
• Direct Greenhouse Gas emissions associated with
our European offices are calculated in accordance
with the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development / World Resources Institute Greenhouse
Gas Protocol and current Defra / DECC guidance for
Company Reporting and reported through
ClimateWise;
• QBE Group Annual Report reports three global
carbon based metrics: business air travel, car fleet
and electricity usage.