Welcome! Our site may look different to you because we made updates to help improve its accessibility to visitors with disabilities. The substance of Travelers 2020 Sustainability content has not changed.

  

Eco-Efficient Operations

Travelers is committed to a long-term sustainable approach to protecting the environment, recognizing that being responsible stewards of our shareholders’ capital requires a commitment to take care of all our stakeholders, including our planet. We continually look for cost-effective ways to minimize our impact on the environment, which can also reduce our operating expenses, without compromising on our promise to customers and employees.

Approach

Most of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are from office activity, mobile combustion (e.g., claim vehicles, commuting) and business travel. While we strive to reduce our emissions, our primary climate-related risks and opportunities relate to our property insurance business and claim service, which we cover in the Climate Strategy, Disaster Preparedness & Response and Public Policy sections of this site.

Our Chief Administrative Officer – a member of the company’s Management and Operating Committees – oversees office activity, mobile combustion and business travel enterprisewide with the help of the Corporate Real Estate and Procurement teams. These teams regularly monitor and analyze our operations and facilities to identify ways for us to operate more efficiently, reduce our environmental impact and lower our operating expenses. We prioritize projects based on their expected financial impact, so our efforts to reduce our energy consumption and waste not only reduce our environmental impact but also lower our operating expenses. Our GHG Inventory & Goals page summarizes our progress to reduce direct and indirect GHG emissions and references our new goal of becoming carbon neutral across our owned operations by 2030.

Although 2020 was an unusual year with respect to our office activity, mobile combustion and business travel, we continue to work on reducing our environmental impact. Our new open workspace environment reduces our footprint and incorporates enhanced technology, including remote collaboration tools and video-enabled conference rooms, to reduce nonessential business travel. In addition, we provide incentives to our employees to use mass transit alternatives and offer parking incentives for carpoolers.

In 2019, we also began to reduce our environmental impact by encouraging our personal insurance customers to convert to paperless billing. We committed to fund the planting of a tree for every paperless billing conversion in Personal Insurance. In April 2020, we met our goal to plant a million trees through this campaign, and we subsequently committed to fund the planting of an additional 500,000 trees by Earth Day 2021. These goals are just one example of our commitment to aggressively seek ways to create shared value – in other words, ways to simultaneously protect our environment, create a streamlined experience for our customers and increase shareholder value.

Environmental Policy & Management System

As outlined in our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, it is the company’s policy to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations; this includes all relevant environmental regulations. The Travelers Environmental Policy, approved by senior management, outlines some of the steps we take to operate more efficiently and in an environmentally conscious manner, including:

  • Continuously reviewing our equipment and technology, installing more efficient versions when appropriate.
  • Conducting assessments with utility providers to better understand and manage our energy usage.
  • Monitoring waste output to ensure we recycle as much as possible.

In addition, all Travelers-owned campuses are ENERGY STAR® certified, which means that we are in the top quartile in terms of energy performance standards and undergo an annual recertification process.

Travelers continues to analyze the company’s operational impacts on the environment and works to minimize negative impacts. We utilize an environmental management system that regularly reviews our operations to measure our impacts and to identify opportunities that increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Some of the key elements of our environmental management system include:

  • Periodic recommissioning of facilities.
  • Evaluating emerging technologies, such as alternative energy, and their potential use in our facilities.
  • Partnering with power and other utility providers to review our operations and, when available, leveraging their incentive programs to help fund our improvements.
  • Evaluating potential changes to energy regulations that may impact our costs and operations.
  • Using technology to fine-tune operational parameters.
  • With respect to waste, minimizing and recycling as much waste as possible.
  • Evaluating how to be more efficient in space utilization, which has led to the introduction of a new open workspace environment that is designed to increase operational efficiency and decrease our need for office space, which will further minimize our impact on the environment.

Our Corporate Real Estate team conducts ongoing facilities assessments at all our owned locations. We also take these assessments into account when developing our capital expenditure plan. For example, we are upgrading all lighting in our Travelers-owned Hartford campus to LED fixtures to reduce our utility consumption, extend the asset life of our lights and provide an enhanced environment for Travelers employees.

As stated in our Supplier Code of Conduct, we expect our suppliers to comply with applicable environmental laws and to work to minimize any negative environmental impact from their operations, including by reducing or mitigating emissions, increasing sustainable use of natural resources and reducing or eliminating waste. Our Procurement team also oversees our comprehensive supplier selection and supply chain management processes, including the review of climate and environmental considerations, where appropriate. In our supplier selection process, Procurement evaluates potential suppliers using the following information, as appropriate:

  • Detailed information about the supplier’s sustainability programs.
  • Sustainability attributes specific to the supplier’s products or services.
  • Results achieved from the supplier’s sustainability programs.
  • Independent audit and/or certification of the supplier’s sustainability practices.

Post-selection, Travelers uses a risk-based approach to monitor news alerts for certain suppliers, which includes monitoring for negative news relating to the supplier’s environmental issues and ethical practices.

GHG Inventory & Goals

Travelers set a goal to reduce the company’s absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 40% by 2020, based on a 2011 base year. As of the end of 2020, we have exceeded this goal, and in April 2021, we announced our commitment to become carbon neutral across our owned operations by 2030.

In recent years, we have implemented various emissions reduction initiatives, including:

  • Lighting. We have spent millions of dollars on interior renovations at our Travelers-owned Hartford campus to upgrade our lights to LED and continue to work with local utility companies to understand the incentives for which Travelers could qualify.
  • Information Technology (IT) Equipment Upgrades. We implement ongoing upgrades to more energy-efficient IT equipment in our data centers. We typically upgrade this equipment every three years.
  • Building Fabric Maintenance Program. Targeting windows and roofs, we have a comprehensive preventive maintenance and repair program to ensure building integrity and reduce energy loss. This program for building fabric will be ongoing for the life of each building.
  • Cloud Migration. We are working toward using more cloud storage solutions to reduce our dependence on data centers, and thereby reduce our carbon footprint, over time.
  • Efficient Fleet Vehicles. We partner with car manufacturing companies to continue transitioning our fleet to more environmentally efficient vehicles/engines.

As illustrated in the table below, between 2011 and 2020, we made significant progress in reducing our carbon footprint, cutting absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 54%. The Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions data in the table below have been verified by an independent third party.

Metric

2020

2019

2018

2017

2011

Scope 1 GHG Emissions (metric tons CO2e)

13,500

23,746

25,591

26,640

37,436

Emissions from Mobile Combustion
(metric tons CO2e)

12,414

22,525

24,329

25,405

36,574

Emissions from Office Activity
(metric tons CO2e)

1,086

1,221

1,262

1,235

862

Scope 2 GHG Emissions*
(metric tons CO2e)

21,908

27,970

29,881

28,250

47,167

Total Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG Emissions
(metric tons CO2e)

35,408

51,716

55,472

54,890

84,603

GHG Emissions per Revenue

(metric tons CO2e per $)

0.00000111

0.00000163

0.00000183

0.00000189

0.0000033248

GHG Emissions per FTE
(metric tons CO2e per person)

1.18

1.72

1.85

1.83

2.76

Scope 3 Emissions from Travel

5,666

17,819

18,584

18,175

Not Tracked

Percentage of Electricity from
Renewable Sources

21%

21%

17%

15%

Not Tracked

Percentage of Total Energy from
Renewable Sources

7%

6%

5%

4.5%

Not Tracked


* Location-based method.

Water & Waste

As with energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, we see many opportunities to align our long-term financial interests with responsible water use and waste disposal, creating shared value for our shareholders and the environment. Travelers monitors waste disposal efforts and water usage across the company’s operations and has implemented certain practices to help ensure proper waste handling and water use. Specifically, we:

  • Employ a third-party vendor to properly recycle and dispose of obsolete IT equipment.
  • Shred and recycle paper at all locations.
  • Installed automatic shut-offs on most faucets.
  • Are installing water bottle filling stations in all new workspaces to reduce the use and disposal of single-use water bottles.
  • Have a bottle and can recycling program at all owned locations.

We measure and track all waste at our owned facilities, including single-stream recycling, municipal solid waste and construction/demolition waste. Furthermore, we now track all water and sewer use, including general water use for restrooms, kitchens and landscape-related irrigation. With these tracking capabilities, we are able to monitor our waste/water consumption trends over time and quantify impacts of building improvements as they relate to creating more environmentally sustainable workplaces.

Illustrative Initiatives

3 volunteers planting a tree.
AMERICAN FORESTS PARTNERSHIP

Partnering for a Purpose – Helping to Reforest America

Two women have a conversation on a couch in front of an office.
OFFICE RENOVATIONS

Boost Engagement and Save Energy

Group of people seated around a table in an office meeting room.
REDUCING NONESSENTIAL TRAVEL

Encouraging Eco-Friendly Commuting and Video Collaboration

Travelers Claim Response Van in a parking lot.
GREENING CLAIMS

Monitoring the Environmental Impact of Our Vehicle Usage

SEE ALL INITIATIVES

Our Drivers of Sustained Value

  • icon-business-strategy
    Business Strategy & Competitive Advantages
  • icon-risk-management
    Capital &
    Risk Management
  • icon-climate-strategy
    Climate
    Strategy
  • icon-community
    Community
  • icon-customer-experience
    Customer
    Experience
  • icon-data-privacy-and-cybersecurity
    Data Privacy &
    Cybersecurity
  • icon-disaster-preparedness-and-response
    Disaster Preparedness
    & Response
  • icon-diversity-and-inclusion
    Diversity &
    Inclusion
  • icon-eco-efficient-operations
    Eco-Efficient
    Operations
  • icon-ethics-and-values
    Ethics &
    Values
  • icon-governance
    Governance Practices
  • icon-human-capital-management
    Human Capital
    Management
  • icon-innovation
    Innovation
  • icon-investment-management
    Investment
    Management
  • icon-public-policy
    Public Policy
  • icon-safety-and-health
    Safety &
    Health
For IndividualsFor BusinessesClaim ServicesPrepare & PreventAbout TravelersCareersInvestorsSustainabilityCustomer SupportMyTravelers®For AgentsAccessibility Support Terms of ServicePrivacy & SecurityProducer Compensation Disclosure

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION

This site contains information about Travelers. Travelers disclaims any duty or obligation to update such information. Any "forward-looking statement" is made only as of the date such information was originally prepared by Travelers and is intended to fall within the safe harbor for forward-looking information provided in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, may be forward-looking statements. Words such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates" and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements include, among other things, statements about our future results of operations and financial condition; our share repurchases and dividends; our strategy and competitive advantages; our strategic and operational initiatives to improve profitability and competitiveness; our new product offerings; our innovation agenda; our investment portfolio; our risk management, including climate-related risks and opportunities, as well as catastrophe modeling; and our underwriting strategy. Results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Factors that can cause results to differ materially include those described under “Forward Looking Statements” in the Corporation's most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Qs filed with the SEC and available on our website.

 
This site may contain links to other Internet sites, and may frame material from other Internet sites. Such links or frames are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information in such site has been endorsed or approved by Travelers.
 
Except where noted, the information covered on this site highlights our performance and initiatives in fiscal year 2020.
 
The inclusion of information on this site should not be construed as a characterization regarding the materiality or financial impact of that information. For additional information regarding Travelers, please see our current and periodic reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

Travelers and The Travelers Umbrella are registered trademarks of The Travelers Indemnity Company in the U.S. and other countries.