This year marks 20 years since the first department for corporate social responsibility in the Generali Group was formed. After two decades, Generali sees its social responsibility through four roles: responsible employer, responsible citizen, responsible insurer and responsible investor.
– As a responsible investor, we invest in that part of the economy that has a positive impact on the environment and society. As a responsible insurer, we provide insurance products with ESG components. As a responsible citizen, we do positive things for the community in which we live through the global initiative of the Generali Group, The Human Safety Net. As a responsible employer, we promote diversity, equality and inclusion in the working environment and work on the professional and personal development of employees. I can say with pleasure that this makes us a desirable employer – points out Vesna Brkić Bošković, director of the Directorate for Logistics and Procurement of Generali Osiguranja Srbija.
We also talked with her about the company’s plans in the area of goals and reducing CO2 emissions, how employees are involved in that process and what they consider an important message when it comes to sustainability.
One of the goals is the reduction of CO2 emissions. What are the specific plans of your company in this regard?
– Generali Group’s goal is to reduce CO2 emissions in its operations by 35 percent in 2025 and by 40 percent in 2026, compared to the base year of 2019. The results for 2023 show that we are on the right track, a reduction of 33.4 percent compared to 2019 was achieved. All this is possible when you have the support of management and employees, but also when you have a dedicated energy management team and an environmental management team. I would also like to mention that for many years our company has had certificates of international standards ISO 14001 – environmental protection management system and standard ISO 50001 – energy management system and that we work in accordance with the requirements of these two standards.
The activities that the Generali Group carries out in a large number of countries are the purchase of electricity produced from renewable sources, more energy-efficient buildings and more efficient use of business premises with further optimization. The emphasis is also on reducing the number of official trips, the way of using official cars and the electrification of the fleet. The third direction is the reduction of paper consumption through digitization and process optimization.
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When it comes to achieving the stated goals, the employees themselves play a big role. How are they involved in this process?
– Our employees will move to the new headquarters of the company in the coming period. And that space will have an energy efficiency certificate and will have the option of using electricity from renewable sources. At the end of last year, our local ESG team defined a local ESG action plan, where a large part of the activities is focused on ecology and energy efficiency. In addition to managers of relevant functions, the team also included employees – sustainability ambassadors. When asked how to reduce CO2 emissions, we received numerous suggestions and launched initiatives to reduce paper consumption (recording of non-digital processes and further digitization, reduction of sending paper mail, reduction of the number of documents to be printed, monitoring of the amount of printed material). Of course, it is very important that we work on employee education and spread awareness about the importance of reducing the carbon footprint. In addition to training at the Group level, local workshops and numerous activities have been launched with the aim of educating our colleagues on how they can contribute to environmental protection. We participated in the tree planting campaign in Novi Sad and Niš, as well as in several waste clean-up campaigns. Achieving goals is only possible with employees who are interested and engaged and ready to transfer our activities to their local communities.
What do you consider an important message when it comes to sustainability?
– When all the activities are carried out, in the end it remains to measure the effect of what was done and make a comparison. It is very important for every company to have an established system and a clear methodology. Starting in 2019, data on the consumption of fuel, electricity, paper, the amount of recycled and non-recyclable waste, kilometers traveled on business trips are entered into the Sphera application. All data must be documented and all data is subject to verification and verification by an external audit. It is a reliable indicator that tells us not only that we have made good decisions, but also that they give visible and significant results in preserving the environment in which we live.
Generali osiguranje Serbia
The interview was published in AGOSOLARNA ENERGIJA I OIE magazine of the Energy Portal.
Source: energetskiportal.rs
