Each day we strive to make progress reducing our carbon emissions and operate responsibly in all aspects of our business. In our view, reducing our environmental footprint—and pursuing energy and resource savings in the process—is the right thing to do for our stakeholders and the environment.
Our Real Estate and Corporate Services team leads our environmental stewardship efforts and guides our strategies to effectively manage our buildings, equipment, and fleet. We report on our environmental efforts to inform our stakeholders of the efforts we’re making, the initiatives and steps taken, and the forward movement on our commitments.
We continue to advance our environmental stewardship efforts by seeking investments in green energy usage for our facilities, exploring opportunities to shift toward a lower emissions vehicle fleet, and reducing paper correspondence with our customers. We believe that if we can yield positive environmental results from our business operations, we can create a sustainable business in line with our Core Values.
Energy and carbon emissions management
We continue to strive to be responsible environmental stewards. In 2020, we established an aspirational goal of carbon neutrality by the end of 2025 for Scope 1 and 2, which we believe will help set the path to net-zero for Scope 1 and 2 in the following decade. To achieve this, we continue to work to reduce our carbon footprint through several means, including investing in renewable energy, exploring fuel-efficient vehicle alternatives, and focusing on efficiency and conservation opportunities within our commercial real estate portfolio, an initiative started over 15 years ago. These efforts have included shifting from fluorescent to LED lighting in core campus locations. We also focus on calibrated automation efforts to optimize and conserve heating, cooling, and lighting and consider other ways to operate our facilities more efficiently given the reduced in-office presence due to the hybrid workforce model.
In recent years, we've expanded our green energy investments to further reduce our impact on the environment. In 2022, we completed construction on a 1.8-megawatt solar array at one of our main campus locations near Cleveland, Ohio, which went live in 2023 and is contributing renewable energy to that location.
We have a renewable energy agreement with a wind farm in Pennsylvania, which provided approximately 65,000 MWh of renewable energy in 2022 and 61,500 MWh in 2023. This agreement provides a source of renewable energy for Progressive into 2026.
Our renewable energy initiatives and investments in energy- and fuel-efficient facilities, equipment, and company vehicles create shared value for our business and stakeholders, supporting our efforts to reduce carbon emissions and pass along cost savings to our customers. To that end, we are excited to announce an additional aspirational goal to achieve 75% renewable energy for our owned buildings and data center locations by the end of 2027.
Our carbon emissions reductions
In 2023, we continued to expand the way we manage, track, and report our carbon emissions. We revised our electric and gas consumption calculations to include less estimated site readings across our real estate portfolio.
We are excited to share our new aspirational goal to reduce by 40% our total Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, when compared to the 2022 base year.
Compared to the 2022 readings, our 2023 Scope 1 emissions decreased 1% and our Scope 2 location-based emissions decreased 15% primarily due to ongoing real estate portfolio consolidation efforts, a continued focus to increase actual gas and electric tracking, and a decrease in company aircraft usage.
Fleet operations
Our fleet consisted of more than 6,300 vehicles at the end of 2023 and, as with our other assets, we continue to advance our environmental stewardship efforts. We continue to explore additional opportunities to reduce our fleet’s carbon emissions by shifting to a lower emissions vehicle fleet through hybrid and electric vehicle purchases. We’re implementing changes to a more fuel-efficient sedan, including hybrid alternatives in vehicle orders, and utilizing an all-electric vehicle at our main campus in Cleveland, Ohio. We’re exploring and pursuing relationships that will allow us to provide vehicles that align with our fleet emission standards.
Another example of our efforts to increase fleet efficiency is the offering and expansion of photo estimating to our customer base, which reduces the miles driven by our claims adjusters. Expanding upon our prior photo estimating program, the Claims organization has partnered with auto repair centers to roll out a Shop Written Estimates (SWE) program. By utilizing SWE and network shops as estimating tools, we’ve been able to reduce our dependency on our fleet.
Responsible waste management
We’re committed to reducing and responsibly managing the waste generated by our building operations. Recycling programs for office paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, and plastic and glass bottles were developed in the past and remain in place today. The programs were developed to reduce the waste we send to landfills and encourage recycling at our campus locations.
As a result of these initiatives, approximately 24% (353 tons) of the waste collected at our campuses was diverted from landfills to recycling centers in 2023. Due to reduced building occupancy, efforts to optimize and realign waste removal were implemented in 2022 and continued during 2023; waste removal at many service locations switched from weekly to every other week or on-call. These efforts are expected to result in reduced expenses as well as the number of miles driven on our behalf by our waste removal vendor.
Progressive has embraced a hybrid workplace. The resulting consolidation of several office locations over the past few years created a surplus of furniture and equipment. To minimize waste, Progressive has actively sought out charitable organizations in need of furniture or equipment for their operations. Throughout 2023, Progressive has proudly donated workstations, chairs, miscellaneous office furniture, and kitchen equipment to 12 different 501(c)(3) organizations. As real estate portfolio consolidation continues into 2024 and beyond, we are committed to exploring future charitable donations to minimize used office furniture ending up in landfills.
For Earth Day in 2023, we partnered with a local organization in Cleveland to foster collaboration and build awareness around responsible resource consumption, disposal strategies, and recycling through virtual and in-person events.
Paper reduction efforts
We continue to support efforts to move to a paperless environment by encouraging paperless policies and offering electronic document options. More than 75% of our Personal Auto and 49% of our Special Lines policyholders are enrolled in our paperless policy program. This program reduces the need for paper correspondence by allowing e-signatures for policy documents and access to policy information via the Progressive mobile app.
Since the beginning of 2023, we’ve provided Personal Auto new business policy booklets and renewals electronically in states that allow us to do so. Our paperless efforts continue to evolve as we seek out meaningful reductions. These initiatives also help to minimize costs.
Looking forward
As we look forward to the future, we’re excited to continue to be responsible environmental stewards. Within Progressive, we are beginning to explore certain Scope 3 carbon emissions categories related to our business. Starting with our 2024 Corporate Sustainability Report, Progressive plans to begin to report externally on Scope 3 emissions in select categories.
An important part of our culture is to work toward creating a better future for not only our employees but also for our communities, shareholders, and the millions of customers who trust us to protect what’s most important to them. We believe our goal of carbon neutrality by the end of 2025 for Scopes 1 and 2 honors that commitment, and we’re working to chart a course with the goal of being net-zero for Scopes 1 and 2 in the following decade.
We expect that Progressive’s plan to be net-zero for Scopes 1 and 2 will leverage the continued application of operational efficiencies and ongoing efforts to reduce emission outputs. We look forward to exploring new ways to optimize our approach to emissions reduction, waste management, and fleet operations. We believe our commitment to sustainability will continue to help us operate more efficiently.
Learn more about Progressive’s Sustainability efforts by visiting our Investor Relations site. We also have full reporting on all of our Environmental, Social, and Governance efforts in our Corporate Sustainability Report.
