Carbon offsetting your policy

“We carbon offset every policy”. It’s one of our key commitments to our customers, and something that we’re proud of. But in a world of opaque statements, and understandable concerns about green-washing, we know that people might question this message. So, with nothing to hide, we lift the lid on the Zixty approach to offsetting every policy, and the calculations that underpin it.

Our carbon commitment

We commit to carbon offset every Zixty policy for free. This is built into the core of the Zixty proposition – whether you buy through the website or the app. Whether you find us via a partner, a price comparison website, or come to us direct – our commitment is the same.

Introduction

As a business we are clear and unambiguous that carbon reduction, not offsetting, should be the goal for every business and individual. Climate change won’t be addressed by offsetting CO2 for a number of reasons, not least the fact that some of these offset mechanisms take years or decades to be fully effective. The problem is now, and while carbon reduction is the goal, offsetting is a proven way to help reduce the acceleration.

So, with the above in mind, we have committed to CO2 offset every Zixty temporary car insurance and every temporary van insurance policy sold.

Offsetting your policy

Net zero is a clear business goal for Zixty, and we have a roadmap for carbon reduction as a business, as well as helping consumers reduce and/ or offset their carbon emissions. As a commitment to our own sustainable practices we’re independently accredited by Green Mark. As part of this we’re subject to annual reviews to ensure that we’re still working in a sustainable way. Alongside this we are building products that encourage sharing, reuse, and rewarding carbon neutral forms of transport.

A key part of this roadmap is offsetting every policy sold, and this document sets out the calculation that supports this commitment.

Within our calculations we have included the environmental costs directly associated with selling and administering policies. We have not included our broader operational and administrative costs, as doing so would, in effect, make us carbon neutral right now. Being carbon neutral will make us very happy, and we’re working towards it, but we’re not there yet.

As a business we are working closely with our suppliers to understand their climate impact, and where we have the option, we choose suppliers who are actively working to reduce their CO2 and working towards their own ESG goals. The supply chain in car and van insurance is long, extending as far as breakdown service providers, repair networks & garages, and parts and spares. We cannot control or influence all aspects of this extended chain – much as we would choose to.

Marketing

People discover Zixty through a variety of means, including our partner organisations, price comparison websites, and our own direct marketing activities. Within our CO2 calculations relating to the administration of your policy we do not include marketing acquisition costs – whether these are ours, or for others.

Advertising and Marketing generate CO2 both from the activities themselves, and from the resultant economic activity (i.e. sales). Looking at the resultant activity, we (a) offset the policy; (b) offer the customer the opportunity to offset their driving CO2; (c) minimise our carbon as a business; and (d) work with suppliers and partners, working towards our goal of net zero. We will work to ensure that our marketing activities utilise techniques that limit their environmental impact.

Operations

We do not include our development, management, finance, marketing, operational, or customer service costs for the business – except where these costs are directly associated with, and attributable to, the selling and administration of a policy. For example, business meetings, website and app development, finance and marketing operations and meetings are currently outside the scope of our CO2 policy calculation.

Elsewhere we talk about our remote-first working policy, and how this minimises our CO2 creation. We’re also all signed-up to Giki Zero – a tool that measures our CO2 footprints as individuals, and helps us reduce our personal impact.

Partners

We do not include the environmental costs for our insurers, breakdown provider, legal expenses provider, excess protection provider, or repair networks and garages. We seek to understand and influence their sustainability credentials and ESG strategies.

Consumers

We don’t include the energy or environmental impact required for consumers to access our service, including their device – whether that’s a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

We include the following costs in our statement that “we carbon offset your policy for free”:

• Visits to our website www.zixty.com (page views)
• Visits to our Quote & Buy journey (page views)
• Visits to view documents (page views)
• Downloads of the app to view documents
• Activity to validate the data that has been input into the website
• Activity to enrich the data that has been input by a website user
• The transfer of data between our website, our servers, and our partner servers
• The activity involved in underwriting and rating customer risk information
• Sending transactional/ service emails
• The collection of money
• The provision of a customer service chat feature
• The provision of customer service via chat (human time)
• The generation and transfer of data and reports to our insurers
• The technical orchestration of all of the above

Where there are established metrics, these have been used. For example, the CO2 associated with sending data between servers and sending emails are well understood.

With the contribution of “people” we use an average CO2 per person from the UK. We then calculate the average amount of time spent chatting per policy sale, and apply this.

Our calculations estimate that it costs significantly less than 1Kg of CO2 to provide and administer one policy.

We plant one tree for every policy sold.

A typical mature tree can absorb 21Kg of CO2 per year when it’s fully grow

An average tree will absorb up to 1 tonne of CO2 in its life. The CO2 sequestration of trees varies enormously, and is dependent on many factors. These factors include tree growth, location, growing conditions, the availability of water, sunlight, local climate, soil nutrients, and site specific factors.

Conclusion

We hope that our support for consumers who want to mitigate their climate impact resonates, and that our approach as a business is aligned with that goal. We believe that our approach is sufficiently transparent to address any immediate questions.