Analysis Of Sustainability Strategies Of An Insurance Company

Introduction

For our sustainability project I was assigned to Travelers Company, which is an insurance company for more than 160 years. Travelers provide the coverage and protect customer’s important belongings and assets. They focus on innovation, which made them leaders in personal, business and specialty insurance. Also, they are the only property casualty company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. They focus on the value of “caring”. They have approximately 30,000 employees and 13,500 independent agents and brokers in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Brazil. Last year they had $29 billion and they rank 106 in Fortune 1000.

Sustainability

Travelers monitor and analyze their operations and facilities to be more eco-friendly. They look for cost-effective ways to minimize their impact on environment and also reduce their operational costs. They have some basic steps to retain their environmental operation strategy. They regularly; review their equipment and technology; they install efficient versions if needed. Also, they conduct assessments with utility providers to adjust and keep a track of their energy usage.

Moreover, they manage waste output and recycle as much as possible. They aim to reduce their carbon footprint and build resilient communities. They focus on the problem of climate change; they check, anticipate and react to changing climate conditions when they are operating. Their actions reach out to the work they do with their clients in helping them alleviate dangers related to changing climate conditions. They have some significant tasks to support their precision about sustainability and environment such as; they provide climate risk transparency through the yearly NAIC Insurer Climate Risk Survey and CDP reaction, conduct comprehensive seller selection and supply chain management processes, including an audit of climate and ecological contemplations. They also provide customer training and they raise awareness through The Prepare and Prevent campaign.

Develop insurance products to encourage reception of braced home development, green structures and half hybrid/electric vehicles. Moreover, they made some partnerships and sponsorships to address sustainability. Such as partnership with Habitat for Humanity® and Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) to build IBHS FORTIFIED homes in coastal sides or sponsoring Coastal Wind Zone for beachfront protection. Travelers created the yearly Excellence in Community Resilience Award to perceive associations that exhibit authority intending to disaster preparedness and community resiliency. Finally, they did a multiyear partnership with The Weather Company to give disaster readiness expertise and best applications to purchasers in territories, which encounters extreme weather. On the other hand, they also have certification from ENERGY STAR, which they all ensure that all Travelers-owned campuses are certified and that they do recertification every year. Lastly, they are North America’s Index Component, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, 2007-2017.

Community Engagement

Travelers' philanthropy is centered educational and career achievement, thriving neighborhoods, and culturally enriched communities. They primarily focus on education funding and lean on to underrepresented students in the goal of educating tomorrow’s workforce. Travelers and the Travelers Foundation basically bolster education activities in Travelers' key urban areas of Hartford, Conn. , and St. Paul, Minn. , and more. Also, Travelers additionally gives supports select community development and culturally advanced communities program. They concentrate on enhancing lives through arts and culture. As their academic and career achievement projects, they target public school students from 5th grade to 12. Travelers funds initiatives that foster improved academic success for middle and high school students.

Also, they financially help organizations to build awareness of and personal readiness for post-secondary education. They try to support organizations that work on a systemic level to reduce achievement gaps and make opportunities reachable for every income level. When considering thriving neighborhoods they help create and maintain safety, vitality, and stability. They support programs that provide permanent housing for low and mixed-income communities, they also support and assist the creation and growth of small businesses by funding organizations, which develop economic continuity and wealth for poor neighborhoods. In addition to that, they value job creation and skill development by supporting communities that helps low-income individuals for job skills, leadership development, and work preparation. Lastly, they provide access to arts and culture and contribute directly to academics. They support arts education by funding organizations for them to use art to stimulate creativity and reach academic achievement in local public schools. Travelers also provides an amount of operating grants an sponsorships for key arts organizations in their region. On the other hand, Travelers Company has an Employee Giving Campaign. They define their employees as strong corporate citizens and valuable assets to their hometowns.

In 2017, Travelers’ employees spent 143,000 hours for their cause. In addition, they gave more than $3. 5 million toward the organization's Employee Giving Campaign, which supports charities, including the United Way. Travelers support their employees’ community initiatives. They also have other applications as; matching gifts, which are donations by travelers’ employees and volunteer grants, $500 volunteer grant to one eligible nonprofit organization. According to my research they did not win any awards about community and giving but they achieved a lot. Diversity/Inclusion: Travelers see their people as their most valuable asset and they believe that they also need to maintain their talent advantage to build for the future. They see diversity inclusion as a business imperative. They make sure that their employees feel valued, supported, upheld and empowered by providing a welcoming environment, which brings different back-grounded people together. They are open to new ideas, perspectives, and cultures. Travelers is committed to increasing diversity by hiring at every level. Moreover, they give an inclusive environment where employees can develop and succeed. They aim to take full advantage from their existing talent capacity. Travelers' diversity and inclusion efforts are led by our Chief Diversity Officer their Diversity Council, which is chaired by our CEO and includes 12 senior executives. They practice diversity and inclusion in many ways. Such as; employ a diverse workforce to reflect the communities in which they do business, they also believe that they benefit in multiple ways from differences in culture, ethnicity, race, color, religion, sexual orientation etc. Other than that, they provide an inclusive work environment for their employees to achieve their full potential.

Also, for development, Travelers has career planning and mentoring assistance services. They are aimed to create a pipeline of diverse candidates and have active talent acquisition strategies which include sourcing and diver slate requirements. They have an Inclusive Leadership objective is included in all managers’ annual performance objectives and an appreciating differences diversity training for their employees to gain a true appreciation of differences and how to leverage differences to achieve shared success. In addition, they have a special event called Diversity Speaks that cultivates a culture that embraces the power of difference, where people share their personal experiences and stories.

In both Diversity Speaks and Appreciating Differences

Diversity training they give training for unconscious bias by helping their employees in minimizing potential blind spots. Also, they launched Travelers EDGE program, which is built to increase access to higher education for underrepresented students, they also offer professional development and mentorship to build awareness of careers at Travelers and within the industry. Lastly, Travelers created Diversity Networks in 2008, which are voluntary organizations managed by workers dedicated to foster a diverse/inclusive work environment. Their membership in the United States exceeded 10,000 in 2017.

All of their commitments resulted with achievements. They gained the awards for their diversity and inclusion effort. Noteworthy Company, DiversityInc, 2013-2018, Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality and 100% score on Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 2016-2018, Top Military Friendly Employer, G. I. Jobs, 2008-2018, Best for Vets, Military Times, 2010-2011, 2014-2018, are the most significant ones.

Conclusion/Summary

To conclude, I believe that Travelers Company have values and core beliefs of sustainability, community and diversity, and try to they protect their values of as much as they can which shows that they really “care” about our World and our people. Seeing companies taking actions for the things that are not profit-oriented gives me hope. I learned how they try to protect the environment and reduce waste, how they care about educational and career achievement, how they make their company a diverse and welcoming environment and much more. I believe that they are in a good position as a company in these 3 aspects but that does not mean that they can’t even improve more.