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 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, communities and employees.

Approach

As an insurer, most of our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are from office activity and mobile combustion (e.g., company vehicles). 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 the Corporate Services teams, which 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; as a result, our efforts to reduce our energy consumption and waste are intended not only to reduce our environmental impact but also to lower our operating expenses. Our GHG Inventory & Goals page summarizes our progress to reduce direct and indirect GHG emissions and references our goal of becoming carbon neutral across our owned operations by 2030.

While the pandemic resulted in decreased in-office activity, mobile combustion and business travel, these activities have largely returned to more normal levels and we continue to work actively 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 or conservation of one tree for every paperless billing conversion in Personal Insurance. As of Earth Day 2024, we have funded the planting or conservation of more than five million trees in 17 U.S. states and Canada through our partnership with American Forests and the U.S. chapter of 1t.org. Our current commitment is to fund the planting or conservation of another 750,000 trees by Earth Day 2025. This initiative is 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.