World Bank Group (WBG)
NB: The World Bank Group consists of five member institutions: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Development Association IDA), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The inventory also comprises data from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
HQ: Washington, DC, USA
Number of staff: 15,312
Number of locations: 246 buildings in 155 locations
Key figures*
Total emissions: 205,133 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Emissions per staff member: 13.4 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Emissions from air travel: 125,388 tonnes CO2 equivalent
Air travel as a proportion of total emissions: 61%
Air travel per staff member: 8.2 tonnes CO2
Building-related emissions: 96.8 kg CO2 equivalent per square metre
* Data includes IBRD, IDA, IFC, ICSID, MIGA, GEF
Mission
The World Bank Group, one of the world’s largest development institutions, is a major source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. The World Bank Group’s mission is to “fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results [and] to help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors.
Experience so far
The World Bank Group is committed to actively integrating sustainability into our work with clients and strives to continually manage our corporate environmental and social impact.
We have an active program to measure, manage, report and offset greenhouse gas emissions associated with the WBG’s global business operations, including fuel used in boilers and generators, electricity consumed in buildings, and emissions from key meetings and air travel. Utilizing our inventory management plan as a guide, we have collected and managed data from all of our offices since 2007 and began using a web-based data management system in 2008 to ensure a transparent and auditable process.
WBG has also set emissions reductions targets. The World Bank recently met a voluntary goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 7% between 2006 and 2011 for its Washington, D.C., buildings and just set a new goal of reducing emissions from all owned and managed facilities by 10% by FY 17.
Electricity use in IFC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., accounts for about 20% of the carbon emissions generated by IFC’s internal operations worldwide. By setting targets, we have steadily reduced our electricity consumption per workstation over the years, lowering it to 5,646 kilowatt hours per workstation. That reflects a 20% decline since 2008—and it means we achieved our target three years ahead of schedule. We are expanding our electricity reduction target to include all IFC-owned offices and exploring the possibility of including other large offices with long-term leases where we are the main tenant. We are working towards announcing a new electricity reduction target in 2014.
In 2006 the WBG became “carbon neutral” for its Headquarters, including day-to-day operations and business travel, and since 2009 has been globally carbon neutral for all of its facility and business travel greenhouse gas emissions (including country offices).
Reduction efforts
In the WBG's Washington, D.C., offices and managed country offices, building engineers constantly monitor the operations of our building systems to ensure that they are operating at their most efficient levels. In addition, we incorporate green building principles into our offices before they are constructed. WB’s Chennai, India office has earned LEED Silver certification, and WB’s New Delhi, India office has earned LEED Gold certification. In Washington, DC the newest WB building is LEED platinum certified for its core and shell, two other WB Washington, DC buildings recently earned LEED gold certification for existing buildings, and IFC’s HQ has achieved LEED-Platinum certification for existing buildings.
Below are specific reduction initiatives for our D.C. buildings:
- Both the WB and IFC have installed occupancy sensors in individual offices and conference rooms, saving over $600,000 a year in electricity costs.
- The chillers in one building were replaced with frictionless, high efficiency chillers that will save $30,000 per year compared with continued operation of the previous chillers.
- Reduced operating hours of our central HVAC and lighting systems
- Eliminated unnecessary lighting in open spaces by removing 50% of fluorescent bulbs in IFC’s HQ
- Modifying office areas to a more open-office space plan, allowing additional natural light to reach employees.
- Powered off drive-lane lighting in parking levels of underground parking in IFC, and installed occupancy sensors in underground parking in one Bank building.
- Installed LED lights in one garage saving more than 100,000 kWh per year.
Several programs exist to engage WBG staff in reducing resource consumption. The World Bank has rolled out a consolidated Sustainable Office initiative. This program utilizes key champions in each unit to assess how the unit is performing in sustainability-related areas such as printing and paper, office products, waste and recycling, energy use, commuting, social issues, and event organization. To further advance an environmentally-aware office culture throughout the Bank, this program provides each unit with resources such as signage, an office guide, and knowledge resources to operate their unit’s offices in a more efficient manner.
Similarly, IFC is piloting a similar “Green Office Certification” program - a voluntary, self-guided initiative to promote best practices for office sustainability. The program consists of checklists and tools that will guide each office through three proposed levels of certification. The program helps identify (and provides support to implement) opportunities to make each IFC office more sustainable, while allowing IFC to compare office performance regardless of type/size/location of the office. In 2012, IFC launched a Global Waste Challenge, encouraging staff to make individual and collective commitments to reduce IFC’s waste footprint.
Next steps
WBG will continue to work to ensure that our GHG inventory for internal day-to-day business operations is as complete and accurate as possible through increasing the response rate to our annual survey and reducing the need for proxies. At the same time, we will continue to ensure that our GHG inventory practices meet international protocols through 3rd-party verification, and align with our peers by sharing and seeking best practice.
The WB is undertaking a LEED assessment process for all of its owned and managed facilities to evaluate potential resource efficiency gains in its global offices.
We are working on creative methods for increasing efficiency in our building’s cooling systems, including the replacement of old chillers in our main complex building in Washington, D.C., with energy efficient chillers. Daylight harvesting systems are also being considered for some of our buildings.
We are also continuing to incorporate green building standards into country office leasing decisions to ensure that our leased spaces are resource efficient. Additionally, an increased number of facilities managed by our general services department will ensure that these buildings are run as efficiently as possible.
We are also working to expand our reduction targets beyond our Headquarters facilities in Washington DC.
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