LBS Baden-Württemberg

 

 

Case study

Environmental Accounting according to EMAS

 

The direct impact of human actions to the environment triggered Landesbausparkasse Baden-Württemberg (LBS-BW) to take responsibility early on. A validated environmental management system, following the European EMAS standard, has been in place at LBS-BW for ten years. The system makes all the environmentally relevant operations and products of LBS BW transparent.

 

This is why today essential decision making depends on environmental aspects, e.g. the selection of assets and commodities and purchasing of vehicle fleets. On the product side, the land use caused by financed domestic construction projects is considered. The management system has initiated integrated improvement processes, like the complex energy consumption management, resulting in a continuous increase of environment performance.

 

Employees were actively involved in the system from the beginning. This has lead to a visible increase in employee identification with the claims of a sustainable corporate management, which is underlined by the high motivation and sensitivity for sustainability topics in the organization.

 

SoFi-Software – the leading solution for environmental accounting according to EMAS

For a continuous improvement process, an essential element of the environmental management system according to EMAS is the environmental accounting with its representation of the relevant energy and material flows. In 2006, LBS BW conducted an internal market analysis and opted for the sustainability software SoFi of market leader PE INTERNATIONAL GmbH to support the environmental management system.

 

Environmental management saves resources and costs

In addition to many improvements in environmental performance, the activities initiated due to the environmental management system have lead to high cost savings in the years from 2000 until today. Beyond protecting resources, environmental management saves costs!

 

Efficient data acquisition and analysis enables the environmental declaration on a mouse click

Today, with SoFi, the responsible colleagues in the different departments of the organization are able to enter information on the various environmental aspects at their desk, in a very efficient way. The structured aggregation and conversion of information into meaningful indicators and the clear presentation of results enables identification of saving potentials for environmental resources in a more effective way.

This includes detailed performance monitoring in relation to environmental targets and monitoring of actions out of the environmental program. With the collection and processing of qualitative information for the environmental management system, SoFi also supports the generation of the environmental declaration. Comprehensive reports can be created on a mouse click.

 

LBS BW was able to realize considerable savings in time and costs because of implementing SoFi. Furthermore it affords clear data traceability for the external and independent auditor, who is auditing the environmental management system continuously. PE INTERNATIONAL has managed to fulfill the requirements of LBS BW in every respect.

 

From environmental management to sustainability management

With a future extension of the environmental management to a comprehensive sustainability management, the software SoFi provides the well-grounded basis for the inclusion of social and economic aspects of sustainability.

 

About our customer

The LBS Baden-Württemberg belongs to the financial syndicate of saving banks, holds one third of the market share and is the leading association of its kind in Germany. It consists of ten home loan banks with confined business domains, with LBS-BW being the biggest organization within LBS Group. The LBS Group has 9 million clients and 11,1 million home loan contracts under management, with a volume of 256 billion Euros. In 2008 10 billion dollars were disbursed for residential construction. Owns 10 real estate companies, brokering 25,900 objects worth 3.648 billion Euros in 2008.

 

more information about LBS Baden-Württemberg

---