Climate Change
Our objective is to partner with NGOs and individuals to raise awareness and implement climate change projects in communities.
Focus Areas:
- Partnerships with wastepreneurs to create jobs
- Alternative water resources in water-scarce communities
- Partnering with local municipalities
Climate change is one of the most important risks impacting the viability and sustainability of the non-life insurance industry. To this end, Old Mutual Insure has established a cross-functional Climate Change Working Group to determine Old Mutual Insure’s strategy for managing climate change risk.
At the end of June 2019, Old Mutual Insure’s Head Office relocated from Central Johannesburg to Wanooka Place, Parktown. Since then, the following green building initiatives were activated:
- Light sensors are installed throughout the building so that LED light panels only switch on when motion is detected.
- We have replaced the building’s old electricity meters with smart electrical meters to promote energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint.
- Assessment has been completed for the project initiated to change all basement lights from fluorescent tubes to LED lights for energy conservation. Final project approval is in progress before the project can commence.
- Over 1000 solar panels were installed on the roof top to reduce our consumption from the electricity grid. The project kicked off on 16 October 2021.
- A computerised Building Management System (BMS), which is in design stage, will enable us to monitor and reduce energy consumption in the building.
Planting a tree in a city improves the health of each person who sees it. From reducing crime and improving wellbeing to protection against the consequences of climate change, urban tree planting is becoming increasingly important. Food & Trees for Africa are a food security, environmental sustainability, and greening non-profit organisation; that has planted more than 4-million trees in communities around South Africa over the last 30 years. We have partnered with this organisation in the distribution of 1 500 fruit and shade trees to 750 families in the Zwelitsha community in the Eastern Cape. The trees will absorb more than 276.75 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and reduce the heat-island effect within the community.
The gardens at Wanooka Place are watered using water from a bore hole situated on the premises.
A greywater system to flush toilets was installed. An assessment of the system has been completed and work is in progress to determine requirements to get the system activated.
- Separation at source is done daily in the basement waste area where our team separates different materials that get sent off to different recycling units. Data is collected and reported on quarterly.
- Recycle bins are visible throughout the building to create awareness.
- Glass boards have been installed throughout the business to eliminate the use of paper flip charts.
This long-term project will start with giving schools boreholes to provide water followed by school gardens and greening.
Geo-surveys were conducted at three schools but only one school was determined to be viable to proceed with drilling (80% expected success rate).
Discussions are taking place with the two schools that have a low success rate (60% and 50%) regarding geo surveying around the school to determine if there will be an area outside the school that will be viable, protected and able to provide the school with the benefit
