Every month we like to share a recommendation from one of our ambassadors: something that inspires them in their responsible business work. This month we spoke to Suzanne Scatliffe, global sustainability director at AXA XL and trustee at Heart of the City, who’s talking about helping employees with sustainability at home.
“When we think about biodiversity, often our mind wanders to exotic locations and species far away from home. For example, in the UK, we don’t immediately think of the organisms that enrich soil, or ancient woodlands, the most biodiverse type of land in the country. It’s also easy to forget how much biodiversity we can encourage on our own patches of land with just a little time and effort – helping birds, bats, and pollinators to thrive.
As part of AXA’s 2023 Week for Good – our company’s annual activity week focused on employee engagement on sustainability and CSR programs – we launched a set of resources for colleagues to help promote pollinators at home, whether in sprawling garden borders or in pots on apartment balconies. AXA XL’s Backyard Biodiversity programme provides colleagues with guides to create pollinator habitats and planting areas that will help bees and butterflies to thrive. We couldn’t have done it without our awesome nonprofit partner – Pollinator Partnership – whose mission is to promote the health of pollinators, critical to food and ecosystems, through conservation, education, and research.
When we launched our new sustainability strategy at AXA XL, we put nature at the heart of our plans. We’ve made public commitments to protect and restore nature – from mangrove forests to the bees in our backyard. Our goals are focused on our products and services, client engagement, thought leadership and colleague programs, you can read more on our Valuing Nature page.
Our focus on nature and biodiversity is built on the good progress we have already made, thanks to incredible partners. We’ve been able to support some ground-breaking innovation developed by The Nature Conservancy with the creation of Blue Carbon Resilience Credits. These would, for the first time, value the combined carbon sequestration and resilience benefits provided by coastal wetland ecosystems. We’ve also recently published an insights report on water risk, informed by guidance and recommendations from our own clients, which we hope will help businesses of all sizes to understand sector-specific water risks and catalyse action with recommended tools.”
