Energy

Using electricity efficiently

In order to do justice to its claim of energy efficiency, Bank Sarasin regularly implements efficiency measures. The focus is above all on IT, since it is here that finance service providers use the most energy.

Thus, in 2010, the existing refrigerators at the Basel head office were replaced with two new installations with double the degree of efficiency. In this way, account has already been taken of increased future electricity demand due to higher server performance.

In Zurich, the entire customer area was equipped with new energy saving light bulbs. In the future, these will consume only a third of the previous electricity.

In Geneva, the entire cooling system was replaced so that electricity may be used more efficiently and water saved.

By virtue of these measures, in 2010, electricity consumption was reduced by 8% relative to the previous year to 5,452 kWh.

The Asian locations of the Sarasin Group took part this year again in the “Earth hour” initiative, carried out globally by the WWF (www.earthhour.org) , thereby sending a signal on climate change.

Heating to measure

The annual heating energy requirement is heavily dependent on temperatures during the heating season. In order to keep the energy requirement as low as possible, however, an automatic heating regulation system has been integrated within the Basel headquarters. This continually adjusts the external temperature with the target internal temperature. In order to keep heating energy to a minimum, in 2011, all windows in the Basel location with poor insulation shall be renewed.

At the Geneva location, in 2010, the windows were insulated more effectively against cold. At the same time, the heating installation in Geneva was replaced by a far more efficient one. In this way, it was possible to reduce heating energy by 22%.

Since the 2010 European winter was considerably longer than in previous years, the number of heating degree days rose. This manifested itself in an increase in heating energy consumption of 2% to 1,533 kWh per employee.

Renewable eneries

As a pioneer in environmental protection, Bank Sarasin issued a signal for renewable energy by installing its own solar power system as early as 1993, with the bank’s own photovoltaic installation on the roof of its headquarters in Basel. Ever since then, this plant has produced enough electricity to supply six average four-person households. In 2010, this amounted to 22,334 kilowatt hours (kWh).

Across the group, 73% of electricity comes from renewable sources. At the Swiss locations, this figure is already 100%. The electricity from renewable sources deployed in Zurich and bank zweiplus is distinguished by the “naturemade star” label. This is the Swiss quality symbol for electricity produced in a particularly ecological manner.

The Basel location uses only district heating as its source of heat energy, which is derived from process heat from the nearby refuse incineration plant in Basel and is 100% renewable.