Sustainability
As a born and bred Kiwi insurer with teams across eight Pacific Island countries, we have a unique role to play in the community when it comes to sustainability and climate change.
While we have always considered climate risk in our strategy and our products, we know we need to do more and lead the way to a more sustainable future.
There is no denying that the climate is changing, and we see the effects of this daily, in the claims we pay and the data we have. At Tower we firmly believe that it is our role to use what we have to help mitigate and prepare for things like rising temperatures, changing sea levels, increased chances of flooding and more volatile weather patterns.
We are also strong supporters of mandatory reporting requirements, which will help increase transparency around what actions are being taken by businesses to prepare for these risks and increase the resilience of our communities and the economy.
Our current areas of focus and activity
Developing our ESG strategy
In 2021 we started our sustainability journey with the development of an ESG strategy that will guide how Tower manages its environment, social and governance issues in the future.
Importantly we have now measured our total carbon emissions across our New Zealand and Pacific operations and have set a science based target for meaningful reduction towards a zero carbon future by reducing our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 21% over five years from FY20.
Community and stakeholder education
Work to date has centered on using risk and pricing to send signals to the market. In future, we will be increasing the transparency of our sustainable footprint and sharing environment data with customers, communities, and councils.
In 2021, we also pledged to support scientific research, education, and innovation through student scholarships for the world’s first Bachelor of Climate Change degree at the University of Waikato.
Sustainability Upgrade benefit
As part of our commitment to sustainability, we are introducing a new Sustainability Upgrade benefit in our house and landlord insurance policies. This comes into effect for new customers on 27 August 2021 and for existing customers on their renewal date.
If your house is destroyed, we'll provide up to $15,000 for you to add or upgrade to sustainable products in your new house. Sustainable products include natural paints, water efficient taps, or solar panels. This excludes natural disaster losses.
We hope this small contribution to increased sustainability will lead to healthier homes for our customers and their families.
Our new head office
As of August 2021, our head office is based at 136 Fanshawe Street - a new, world-leading 6 Green Star Building in Auckland's CBD.
Green Star is an internationally recognised system which rates a building's overall environmental impact across nine categories including energy, emissions, land use, and innovation.
Our new home at 136 Fanshawe Street was designed, developed, and constructed with sustainability in mind. The building is equipped with cutting-edge technology aimed at saving energy and cutting waste.
It's allowed us to create dynamic workspaces for our employees who are now based on one floor instead of being split across multiple levels. In our new space we're embracing technology making it easier to collaborate, communicate, and work in an agile way.
