Environmental Stewardship

We are making strides to do our part to ensure the environment remains vibrant for generations to come by prioritizing energy and waste efficiencies, decreasing our environmental footprint, and making our business more resilient and sustainable.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES

Ocean Health and Environment Conservation

In 2017, the Pacific Life Foundation committed $2.5 million in grant funding over five years to support ocean health and marine mammals. This support was renewed again in 2022 for an additional $2.5 million over the next five years. In 2023, Pacific Life Re pledged £450,000 over four years to WWF-UK to support the Blue Forest Program, which is focused on safeguarding coastal ecosystems. To date, $17.9 million has been invested in the preservation and conservation of marine mammals and the health of our oceans.

Focused funding is helping to support programs at The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, and World Wildlife Fund, along with additional funding of ocean-related charitable organizations at the local, regional, and international level.

The Nature Conservancy

The Foundation’s support is for The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) focus to reinvent ocean information systems in California by transforming slow, outdated systems into a model of ocean information management built on real-time data streams that provide continuous signals of ocean health. In California, TNC worked with local fishermen and researchers to develop and test new fishing gear that selectively targets swordfish and prevents bycatch of turtles, sharks, and other wildlife. The organization developed a first-of-its kind early-warning system to assess and respond to whale and sea turtle entangling, which have been on the rise recently.

Oceana

The Foundation’s support is geared toward multiple campaigns by Oceana to protect marine life and sensitive seafloor habitat from destructive fishing. Oceana’s campaign efforts since 2017 have resulted in more than 165,000 square miles of seafloor habitat being protected from bottom trawling – protecting corals, sponges, rocky reefs and other important areas for marine life and ocean ecosystems. With these new protections, 90 percent of the seafloor in U.S. ocean waters off the West Coast are now off-limits to bottom trawling.

Ocean Conservancy

The Foundation’s support is targeted toward Ocean Conservancy’s critical work to protect marine mammals from the harmful impacts of trash and keep the ocean healthy, through the Trash Free Seas® Program and the International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC). Together, Ocean Conservancy and the Pacific Life Foundation have successfully increased global awareness, prevented thousands of tons of trash and debris from ending up in our ocean, and mobilized millions to clean the world’s beaches and waterways. Since July 2017, through the annual ICC, more than 75 million pounds (37,700 tons) of trash were removed from beaches, waterways, and the ocean. In addition, Clean Swell, Ocean Conservancy’s data collection app, has allowed volunteers to submit data on trash removed during cleanups across the world, revolutionizing how data is collected and tabulated.

World Wildlife Fund

The Foundation funding supports the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) efforts to reduce the devastating impacts of bycatch by working with both fisheries and policymakers, including leveraging the Marine Mammal Protection Act import rules. WWF used their global public reach to highlight the causes and impacts of ghost gear, which accounts for 10% of all marine litter entering the oceans each year and can remain in the oceans for up to 600 years. Their work with testing the use of net illumination in reducing bycatch of sea turtles has not only shown reductions in turtle bycatch, but reductions of up to 80% in general overall bycatch. Pacific Life Re’s funding is supporting the partnership between WWF-UK and the Blue Carbon Research Centre aimed at safeguarding coastal ecosystems through capacity building events.

Environmental Impact

We are conscious of our environmental footprint, the impact we have in our communities, and what we leave for future generations.

Emissions

To better understand our environmental footprint we have begun calculating our Scope 1 and 2 emissions using methodologies drawn from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol developed by the World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (GHG Protocol). Using 2019 as a baseline, we will continue to monitor and track our progress year over year.

Green Initiatives

Energy

LED lighting and window replacement led to a
decrease in electricity and gas usage.

Waste

Through Pacific Life’s recycling efforts, the company has been able to divert thousands of pounds of trash from landfills. Our usage of biodegradable materials in our offices and proper sorting of waste help to reduce pollution in our waterways, wildlife endangerment, and environmental degradation.

Global Footprint

Pacific Life’s hybrid-work environment provides employees flexibility with how and where they work, reducing our office footprint and having employees spend fewer days commuting to and from our offices.

Orange County Headquarters Renovations

Our Newport Beach headquarters office recently underwent extensive renovations, in which sustainable building materials, energy efficient components, and native plant landscaping were installed.

Explore more about Pacific Life's CSR efforts

 

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and are required to achieve the purposes illustrated in our online privacy policy.