Energy and environmental management
Our goals: operational environmental protection and reducing our resource consumption
Environmental and energy management deals with all issues relating to electricity and heat supply, water consumption, materials consumption and waste management, transport logistics and commuter traffic, the resulting greenhouse gas emissions, and product ecology aspects.
Sustainable banking operations
Our integrated energy and environmental management system systematically drives the further development of corporate environmental protection. It also helps to make Commerzbank's actions ever more sustainable. All employees in the company are involved and challenged. The most important goals are to reduce the operational consumption of resources, to make greater use of renewable energies and to reduce direct as well as indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Ensuring sustainable procurement is also a high priority at the bank.
ISO certifications
Our environmental management system has been certified to ISO 14001 since 2009, and in 2015 we added our energy management system to ISO 50001. The certification attests to the fact that we are continuously improving our environmental performance and energy efficiency.
The requirements of the ISO standard help us to systematise, manage and control the various activities for improving our environmental performance.
We set ourselves targets to continuously improve our environmental and energy management performance
Climate target
30 % less greenhouse gas emissions from 2018 to 2025 - that is the current climate target of Commerzbank AG. For the first time, this target also applies to international Commerzbank locations in around 20 countries in addition to the sites in Germany.
Energy targets
These envisage reducing total energy consumption by an average of 2 % per year by 2025 compared with 2018. In addition, electricity consumption per full-time employee is to remain constant by 2025 compared with the base year 2018 - despite increasing digitisation.
Leading by example, Initiatives for environmental protection and resource conservation
Green electricity
We have been sourcing 100 % of the electricity in our buildings in Germany from renewable energy sources since 2013. Worldwide, the share is 91 % (as of 2022).
LEDs for more energy efficiency
Since 2010, outdoor signalling and shop windows in all stores have been illuminated with LEDs. At around 10 % of the locations, we have already converted the room lighting to LED as well, with others to follow successively.
Towel recycling
Paper towel recycling at headquarters locations saves about 20 % of residual waste generation.
Intelligent software solution for building control systems
Technical systems are intelligently networked and controlled by a software solution. This results in electricity and heat savings of up to 30 % at five sites to date. Further sites have been commissioned and will follow.
Business network exchange for fan replacement
The regular exchange in the "Business Energy Efficiency Network" led to an upgrade of the 120 fans in a data centre. This optimises our energy consumption.
Green Building
, Awards for our Commerzbank TowerCompleted in 1997, the Commerzbank Tower won the Green Building Award of the City of Frankfurt am Main in 2009. In 2017, it was certified in accordance with the American LEED standard for resource-efficient construction and management in the "existing buildings" category. The building performance, such as energy and water consumption, and the building operation, such as technical operation, purchasing and disposal strategies, were evaluated.