Environment Policy

Introduction

William Russell Ltd [henceforth referred to as “we”, “our”, and “us”] is provider of international health, life, and income protection insurance. We’re committed to acting responsibly when it comes to environmental and sustainability affairs as a matter of principle. We also believe that good environmental responsibility and stewardship makes strong business sense (e.g., efficiency and investments that reduce operating costs). In line with ISO 14001 management principles, we’re committed to reducing our environmental footprint across our value chain.

Corporate structure

In the UK, we conduct our business operations through a single company, William Russel Ltd. In the European Economic Area, we conduct our business operations through a wholly-owned subsidiary company, William Russell Europe SRL. This policy applies to both of these companies, as well as employees, contractors, suppliers, and other partners.

Environmental stewardship

• Emissions of greenhouse gasses—We aim to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases in support of the °C pathway recommended by the scientific community and the United Nations Global Compact. We’re doing this by focusing on minimising emissions associated with our property portfolio and inter- and intranational travel
• Energy usage—We use energy responsibly, and we’ll continue to reduce energy consumption through enterprise-wide actions, including behavioural changes. We’ll seek opportunities to increase the proportion of renewable energy that we consume.
• Water—We believe that access to clean and safe water is a human right. We demonstrate water stewardship by reducing water consumption.
• Waste—We use the “reduce, reuse, and recycle” model to minimise our waste footprint and priorities our largest waste streams, including paper waste. We are also deepening employee engagement to divert company waste from landfill sites
• Supply chain—We expect our contractors, suppliers, and partners to comply with all applicable environmental laws and regulations and we continue to improve our responsible procurement practices by taking steps to integrate the consideration of our suppliers’ environmental sustainability into our purchasing decisions.
• Distribution—We focus on reducing emissions from the distribution and logistics associated with our operations.
• Innovation and best practices—We continuously explore innovative solutions that reduce our reliance on natural resources and increase the efficiency of our buildings and activities.

Stakeholder engagement

• Our employees—We raise awareness about environmental stewardship among employees and empower those employees to take action with information in their staff handbook and employee-led environmental action programmes.
• Our customers—We empower customers to reduce their environmental impact by providing them with paperless documentation.

Responsible governance

• Performance targets—We’ll continue to review our environmental performance annually and performance against targets for continuous improvement.
• Business continuity—We ensure that services to customers are not interrupted by extreme weather events by following the procedures set forth by our business continuity plan.
• Integration of environmental considerations—As our understanding of the ways that our business shapes and is shaped by the environment and climate change evolves, we aim to continuously integrate environmental considerations into our business processes and encourage our suppliers, contractors, and partners to do the same.
• Regulatory obligations—We maintain programmes and processes designed to promote compliance with identified environmental regulatory requirements. Additionally, we periodically and systematically review our environmental risk.
• Leadership management—We communicate our environmental performance to our leadership.