Prudential first introduced an environmental commitment, with detailed domestic goals, in 2008.
Eleven years later, the Newark-based company said it expanded its Global Environmental Commitment to support sustainable initiatives across business, operational and investment goals – including awarding $25 million by 2025 through The Prudential Foundation to support response efforts to climate-related weather events or natural disasters.
The announcement comes as world leaders gather in Madrid, Spain from Dec. 2 – Dec. 13 for the United Nationals Climate Change Conference, COP25. The annual meeting is designed to advance efforts on the UN climate change process. At COP24, held in Poland, the meeting agreed to guidelines to implement the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Goals outlined in Thursday’s announcement from Prudential include reducing domestic emissions by 65 percent by 2050, achieving a 65 percent waste diversion rate by 2025 through recycling and composting, contributing 10 percent of the company’s impact investment portfolio toward sustainable investments by 2025, and committing the company’s top vendors to support the new GEC and report on key performance indicators of climate change by 2022.
“We must ensure the long-term value of both our operations and investments by acknowledging the risk of global climate change, meeting the challenges and opportunities that climate change presents for our business, and reducing our own environmental impacts,” the Prudential GEC reads. “We believe that instilling the principle of environmental stewardship throughout our global businesses benefits our clients, employees, and shareholders – as well as future generations.”
All Prudential businesses will implement the renewed commitment, the company said, supported by an in-house Environmental Task Force and Sustainability Council, and Vice Chairman Rob Falzon. Annual progress updates will come from a review of the GEC and efforts toward its goals by the company’s board of directors’ Corporate Governance and Business Ethics Committee.
Prudential said the updated GEC was put together after a review that involved industry best practices, like activities of peer financial services providers, and the current sustainability field.
The objectives are also in line with Science Based Target initiatives, according to Prudential, a collaboration of CDP, the UN Global Compact, the World Resources Institute and WWF.
