Corporate environmental and climate protection

Thanks to our exemplary mobility management and the improved energy efficiency of our IT infrastructure and buildings, we have made progress in reducing our CO₂ footprint over the past few years. Although absolute emissions have risen slightly because of various acquisitions, emissions have not actually increased in line with corporate growth due, in particular, to a reduction in heating and motor fuels at our own company.

Mobility management

The volume of traffic has increased massively in Liechtenstein over the past few years: more than 32'000 commuters travel to, from, or within the country to work every day. The LLB Group is committed to keeping the environmental pollution caused by business and commuter traffic as low as possible. We have an incentive scheme to encourage our staff to use public or non-motorised transport or form car pools to get to work. Here, on the one hand, we subsidise the cost of season tickets on public transport and offer a bonus in return for foregoing a parking space. And, on the other hand, we levy parking charges – there are four charge bands and the charge levied depends on the distance to work. We promote the use of non-motorised transport by providing changing facilities and showers with towel services as well as 45 company bicycles at our business locations. We also contribute CHF 50.00 towards the purchase of a bicycle helmet and motivate our employees to take part in the competition run by the Verkehrs-Club Liechtenstein (VCL) “Radfahren für Ihre Gesundheit” (Cycling for your health) and the one by the Liechtenstein Chamber of Commerce and Industry “Mit dem Rad zur Arbeit” (Cycling to work).

These measures are having an effect: out of all LLB employees in Liechtenstein, 293 (2018: 277) now come to work by bus, bike or on foot; this corresponds to 41 per cent.

In the first quarter of 2018, we installed nine electric charging points at six locations in Liechtenstein in an effort to promote electromobility. The charging points are primarily available for use by our employees who drive to work in an electric car, but they can also be used by our clients.

Energy-efficient buildings

The organisational unit Facility Management identifies potential energy savings and evaluates the effect of efficiency measures. We continue to improve the energy efficiency of our properties through renovating and refurbishing. An example of this is our “Green Datacenter”, which not only corresponds to the highest security standards, but also has an excellent energy balance. A key measure of our datacentre is the power usage effectiveness (PUE). We aim to achieve a PUE value of below 1.5, which would be half the original energy usage. In 2019, we achieved a PUE of 1.4 (2018: 1.5). Since two of our business premises in Vaduz (our headquarters and Haus Wuhr Ost) are equipped with photovoltaic systems, we generate a small part of our electric power in an environmentally friendly manner. In 2019, the PV systems produced 8'560 kilowatt-hours (2018: 9'380 kWh).

Drink tap water – donate drinking water

In 2017, LLB joined “Drink & Donate” – a drinking water project. Hydration stations that use fresh tap water have since been provided in all buildings in Liechtenstein. LLB donates CHF 60.00 per employee per year to “Drink & Donate”, a Zurich-based non-profit organisation. We again donated a total of CHF 39'000 in 2019. By consuming tap water instead of transporting branded bottled water from afar, we also contribute to reducing our CO₂ footprint.

Partner to climate foundations

LLB is a partner of the independent non-profit LIFE Climate Foundation Liechtenstein (since 2009) and the Swiss Climate Foundation (since 2012). It thus belongs to a group of 27 partner firms that pool their resources to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The companies do this in an uncomplicated and efficient manner and, through their activities, help to protect the climate. LLB refunds of CO₂ contributions from Liechtenstein made to the Climate Foundation are used to promote new products and technological developments that contribute to climate protection as well as energy-saving projects. SMEs that contribute to climate protection also benefit from this.