Psagot’s environmental policy
Psagot considers environmental protection to be an important value and believes that organizations should intelligently manage the consumption of natural resources and environmental effects founded on a broad, long term view.
We believe that our duty is to care for future generations to come and act responsibly in this area as well.
Psagot is committed to the principle of sustainable development. We aim to exploit natural resources carefully and responsibly, being mindful to our surroundings, to minimize environmental harm and its long term consequences and to act in protecting the environment.
Psagot recognizes that natural resources are public resources that belong to all populations on Earth both, in the present and future, and understands that development of the economy must be combined with environmental protection and conservation of natural resources for the sake of future generations.
Psagot adopted a proactive approach in this field, forming an environmental policy consisting of objectives for improvement and a long term plan in order to achieve these goals.
This is a long term process that requires true commitment. Its initial results are already evident, but the plan is only beginning to be realized. We are committed to its completion in the coming years and to continuously improve this process.
Psagot provides public information activities serving its employees in order to increase awareness and enlist them to this goal, regularly scheduling activities in an effort to reduce the consumption of consumable resources, increase recycling and the adoption of an "environmental" approach seeking to prevent harm to the environment. Psagot’s employees take part in scheduled voluntary activities in protecting the environment. In manifestation of the considerable importance which Psagot confers to this subject, the group appointed a VP who oversees this subject and is responsible for its development, promotion and integration into the organization.
Psagot an office orientated organization offering financial services and financial products, Psagot consumes resources such as energy for transport and lighting, ink cartridges, office paraphernalia, paper and cleaning agents. As an organization committed to the principles of long lasting development we seek to constantly improve our performance in this area as well, while exercising discretion and measures to reduce the consumption of materials from natural resources and increasing their reprocessing. Psagot prepared procedures to improve performance by means of “green” procurements, savings in paper consumption, cutback in energy consumption , energy effectiveness, reduced water consumption, increased recycling activities (paper, bottles, batteries, ink heads for printers and so on), savings in fuel and so on and so forth. In such manner Psagot aims to realize and execute its commitment to protect the environment and constantly improve the the organization's performance in environmental matters.
Measuring environmental effects and actions for improving performance
The organization’s policy and work procedures on the subject of environment include, inter alia, gauging and managing Psagot’s direct impact on the environment and creating the conditions for the organization's positive and indirect effect on the environment.
As a necessary move in realizing its environmental policy, Psagot takes measures to gauge and study the organization's impact on the environment, sets objectives to reduce its effect on the environment and performs inspections to ensure that these objectives are achieved.
CO2 emission and its effect on global warming
Our planet has become warmer in recent years attributed to direct human activity, mainly due to rapid industrialization in developing countries. This trend of global warming has encouraged many organizations to seek solutions in identifying their effect over this process, by measuring effects and seeking ways to curb the consumption of natural resources and energy and finding smart saving solutions and alternatives that do not harm the environment.
Psagot is Israel’s first carbon balanced investment house.
In connection with its efforts against global warming, Psagot acts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in a number of major ways -
1. To reduce emission at source by performing technical and behavioral adjustments inside the organization -
• To integrate command and control systems in electricity consumption.
• To increase energy saving (the ratio between the number of employees and the amount of electricity consumed - electricity consumption at Psagot's offices as well as fuel consumption incompany cars, by providing information to employees in this regard, investments in future cost-saving technology ventures (such as the transition to a virtual server system, the procurement of electrical appliances with A energy rating, etc.)
• To encourage employees to commute by pooled transport.
• To shift to cars with lower fuel consumption and better performance in the amount of pollutants emitted.
• To collect Psagot's paper waste by an external supplier for shredding and recycling for the purpose of reprocessing. Psagot reviewed its paper consumption volumes for 2007-2008 (forms, photocopying paper, toilet paper and paper towels).
• To promote employee awareness in reducing water consumption when washing hands, dishes and when using toilets.
2. Voluntary balancing of greenhouse gases emitted by Psagot (carbon offsetting) by purchasing carbon credits – Psagot measures the level of emissions from the company's electricity consumption in the company and from cars used by employees and offsets its carbon emissions by planting trees on uncultivated land. By means of the One Tree Project, Psagot will plant in 2010 over 5,000 trees in uncultivated areas that are designated for future construction. Beyond the social benefits that trees have in planted areas, each tree “saves” 750 kg. of greenhouse gas during its lifetime.
3. Furthermore, as part of the “responsible leader” concept and the ability of institutional bodies in general and of Psagot in particular to influence the conduct of organizations in Israel and around the world, Psagot joined the voluntary carbon disclosure project (CDP), an international project that collects information of carbon emissions from over 4,000 major corporations worldwide.
The project involves institutional investors from all over the world (pension funds such as TIAA CREF, insurance companies such as Allianz and asset managers such as Morgan Stanley, Barclays and HSBC), BlackRock Goldman Sachs, which together manage over 55 trillion dollars, and operates in obtaining information from the corporations on business risks and opportunities that global warming and greenhouse gases have to corporations, by sending a questionnaire to corporations by the organization on behalf of the institutional investors that joined its ranks.
The motto of the project is “Whatever is measurable is manageable”. The questionnaire that is sent to corporations has two main components: A qualitative component – which assesses the company’s preparations to deal with global warming and a quantitative component that assesses the corporation's carbon emission level (in tons).
Answers to questionnaires are published in the organization’s website and are accessible to all institutional investors members of the organization. Institutional investors may make use of information for evaluating the companies reviewed by them or for developing indexes or financial products dealing with the environment. After seven years of activity, CDP has become the golden standard for transparency processes concerning carbon information.
In 2010, the questionnaire is expected to be sent to 4,500 corporations around the world. The project has already been launched in fourteen countries, including Great Britain, the United States, France and Germany. The project has earned the support of Ban Ki-Moon, Rupert Murdoch, Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and others.
Resources consumption
1. As part of Psagot's management of operating costs and environmental effects, electricity consumption data of the entire organization is collected and studied. The average per employee energy consumption at Psagot has decreased over the years, despite growth in the organization's operations, reflected in more office space and the hiring of additional personnel .
The organization's office-based nature dictates the use of IT equipment, releasing heat and requires considerable investments in energy for air conditioning. Nevertheless, efficient energy consumption contributes to a more moderate increase in electricity consumption.
The following is a list of the actions listed on Psagot’s energy savings agenda and consequently its cost cutting strategy:
• Saving in lighting: a shift to the use of energy saving light bulbs.
• Temperature and air conditioning controllers: Systems for automatic deactivation and shutting of air conditioning.
• Reduction of heat emitted from information servers by a shift to smart virtual technology.
2. For the past several years, Psagot's paper waste is collected by an external supplier for shredding and recycling.
Psagot has reviewed its paper consumption volumes for 2007-2008 (forms, photocopying paper, toilet paper and paper towels) aiming to reduce its consumption. To this end, Psagot initiated various environmentally friendly activities, that also benefit cost saving .
The measures that Psagot’s intends to initiatein minimizing paper use:
• Reprocessing of envelopes.
• Employing an online form signing system.
• Transition to two-side printing.
• Printing centers.
3. Psagot promote awareness among its employees to cut down on water consumption when washing hands, dishes and using toilets.
Procurement of environmentally friendly technologies
Within its long term planning, Psagot included instructions for the procurement of environmentally friendly technologies and has already begun implementing these instructions.
Heat emitting devices – significant reduction in the number of information servers and the shift to virtual servers (resulting in a 60% reduction in heat emission from the company's servers).
Preference of a energy rating appliances.
Recycling of batteries, cans and bottles
Psagot has introduced into use at its various sites containers for collecting used batteries, cans and beverage bottles. In addition, Psagot encourages its employees and suppliers to bring used batteries, empty cans and bottles to the company’s premises for recycling using the infrastructure set up at the company's sites.
Use of environmentally friendly materials
We at Psagot believe that the use of non-pollutant environmentally friendly materials should be preferred.
• Psagot has ceased to purchase disposable plastic cups – as their decomposition takes many years – purchasing paper cups only, whose environmental effect is minimal and are recyclable. At the same time, Psagot distributes reusable cups to all of its employees for daily use and also to educate them in saving consumable materials.
• Psagot purchases recycled ink cartridges for its laser printers. All used cartridges return for recycling after their use.
Environmental / social considerations in investment management
1. Psagot conducts analyses of environmental factors of companies including these considerations when investing in companies.
2. In 2004, Psagot launched the Psagot (4A) Maala mutual fund, which invests in securities of corporations that appear in the Maala SRI index on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange – an index listing the top 38 companies in terms of Ma’ala's ranking, complyingwith the threshold conditions of the Tel Aviv 100 index (40% of the income derived from managing this fund is earmarked to donations used for social projects).
The Maala Index enables investors to invest in a group of leading companies selected not only due to their excellent financial performance but also according to their management and performance of their impact on the Environment, their employees, the community and their ethical performance. It gives crucial information to investors, consumers, employees, suppliers etc.
At the same time, Psagot has started a process of incorporating environmental analysis of companies in order to add environmental considerations to its considerations when selecting companies for an investment.
Summary
We at Psagot consider the integration and preservation of environmental values to be a meaningful challenge not only in terms of the group but also in terms of Israel as a whole, for the sake of developing and protecting Israel's environment. Psagot is a multifaceted and large scale organization. Obviously, the manner in which environmental protection values are integrated into the range of its activities is long term and complex and exemplifies the difficulty involved in such a task.
We at Psagot are doing everything possible to increase our employees' awareness and activity in protecting the environment and act in all seriousness and diligence to minimize the direct and indirect harm which we impose on the environment.