Japan's Nipponkoa Insurance Commits to Go Carbon Neutral

On July 28, 2008, Nipponkoa Insurance Co., a leading Japanese insurance company (excluding life insurance), released a declaration to comprehensively reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by its corporate activities to "zero" by fiscal 2012. The company aims to make its corporate activities "carbon neutral" by reducing CO2 emissions not only from electricity, which is relatively easy to measure, but also from business trips, commuting, and logistics. It says that this approach towards achieving carbon neutrality is so comprehensive as to be very rare among other Japanese companies.

The company's commitment arose from the realization that the insurance business would be seriously affected by frequent occurrences of abnormal weather influenced by global warming. With a total investment of about 30 billion yen (about U.S.$286 million), it plans to reduce its CO2 emissions by fiscal 2012 by more than 15 percent, compared with its fiscal 2006 levels, while the remaining 85 percent will be offset mainly by emissions trading.

On October 20, 2008, Nipponkoa released a more detailed plan of its declaration and the standard used to calculate CO2 emissions, which was developed in cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment and other institutes. The company also plans to continue unveiling other new measures to reduce CO2 emissions through its insurance programs and services, as well as accident responses, as they are developed.

- NIPPONKOA Insurance Co. official website
http://www.nipponkoa.co.jp/english/index.html

Posted: 2009/01/19 06:00:15 AM

TAG Global warming , Non-manufacturing industry