Eco-Efficient Operations

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.

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:

• Reviewing our equipment and technology and 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 review 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.
• 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. 

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.

After 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.

Travelers set a goal to reduce the company’s absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 40% by 2020, based on a 2011 base year. By year-end 2020, we exceeded our goal and, as of year-end 2023, we reduced the company’s absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 54%. In April 2021, we made a commitment to become carbon neutral across our owned operations by 2030.¹

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

• Lighting. We have renovated our Travelers-owned Hartford area offices and Norcross and Omaha data centers to upgrade our lights to LED. We continue to explore LED lighting upgrades to other owned facilities.
• Technology Equipment Upgrades. On a regular basis, we upgrade software and equipment in our data centers to help maximize energy efficiency.
• Building Fabric Maintenance Program. We have a comprehensive preventive maintenance and repair program (which includes a focus on windows and roof systems) designed to ensure building integrity and reduce energy loss.
• Cloud Migration. We have an enterprise initiative to utilize Software as a Service and Cloud-based solutions that will reduce our dependence on our data centers, which will reduce our carbon footprint, over time.
• Efficient Fleet Vehicles. We regularly evaluate our fleet options and plan to continue to transition our fleet to more environmentally efficient vehicles over time.

The table below outlines our Scope 1, 2 and certain of our Scope 3 (business travel only) emissions data, all of which has been verified by an independent third party since 2013. The most recent five years are presented to include a comparison to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, as the period from 2020 to 2022 was impacted by decreased activity as a result of the pandemic. In addition, 2011 is included since it serves as the base year for the company’s initial GHG goal. We use The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard to calculate our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions; we use The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard to calculate our Scope 3 GHG emissions. 

¹ Refers to Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions from owned operations. Owned operations do not include real estate holdings for investment purposes.
² Location-based method.
³ Includes business air travel, rail travel and rental cars.

As with energy usage 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 auto shutoffs on most faucets.
• Are installing water bottle filling stations in the majority of new workspaces to reduce the use and disposal of single-use water bottles.
• Maintain bottle and can recycling programs at all owned locations.
• Compost food waste from kitchens in our Hartford campus.
• Introduced 100% biodegradable/compostable utensils and food containers in the Hartford campus.

We measure and track all waste at our owned facilities, including single stream recycling, municipal solid waste and construction/demolition waste. We also 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 trend waste/water consumption over time and quantify impacts of building improvements as they relate to creating more environmentally sustainable workplaces.