As the awareness of the challenges of climate change has grown, greenhouse gas emissions and the careful handling of resources have become the focus of environmental commitment – both on the political and legislative level and within companies. As a direct consequence, Deutsche Börse Group has developed a comprehensive package of internal and external measures. The internal initiatives focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, water and paper consumption as well as waste to improve the environmental friendliness of the Group. In our market initiatives, we draw on our competence as a marketplace organiser to offer innovative products and services for a sustainable future, such as indices on environmental issues or trading emissions allowances. Environmental issues have been an important element of our corporate responsibility concept since 2008. To us, environmental protection is an unconditional obligation to preserve our basic natural resources. In 2010, we extended our environmental data analysis to increase the transparency of our reports and implement further emission savings opportunities. Furthermore, we require our suppliers to comply with minimum environmental standards and are continuously expanding our range of environmental trading products. Using resources to deliver on corporate responsibility It is our aim to further reduce our ecological footprint. In recent years, we have already made progress in reducing our resource consumption through a number of environmental protection activities. We see these initiatives as an ongoing process with the aim of continuously improving the Group-wide environmental management. In this process, it is of central importance to raise our employees’ sensibility for ecological issues. Two central processes aim at raising environmental awareness within the Company and help us profit from our employees’ ideas. The Group innovation tool YouNovate allows for the submission of ideas for improvement regarding a resource-preserving corporate culture. Four times a year, the 'Green Day' offers comprehensive information to employees on a central environmental topic.
Sustainable products – ecological investments We are not only striving to run our business as ecologically as possible, but also to promote ecological trading. We act responsibly on the global capital markets, guided by sustainability criteria. This is why we offer our customers options to invest ecologically, and have created two indices, the ÖkoDAX® and the DAXglobal® Sarasin Sustainability Index. Working in conjunction with the European Energy Exchange AG (EEX), trading in emission certificates has also been made possible. The Cube – setting ecological standards In 2010, we relocated our Company's headquarters to Eschborn. Our new building “The Cube” is among the most energy-efficient and ecofriendly in the whole of Germany. The building has a primary energy consumption of 150 kWh/sqm, thus saving approximately 60 per cent more energy than stipulated in the Energy Saving Directive 2007 (EnEV 2007). The building's own electricity production through an integrated combined heat and power unit covers up to 30 per cent of electricity needs. Due to its ecologically innovative construction, it is one of the first buildings in Germany to receive a platinum-standard Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certificate from the U.S. Green Building Council. The key to this uniquely efficient building design is an integrative energy concept, combining architectural, facade construction and building equipment features.
Environmental initiatives in practise To further enhance energy efficiency and use the available resources responsibly, we take a number of measures, among them: Mobility workshop
On 11 September 2010, employees and their families were invited to spend the day on the grounds of the old airport in Bonames/Kalbach. Participants were instructed by experts of the Umwelt Exploratorium e.V. (Environmental Exploratorium Club) on private mobility. The first part of the workshop focused on everyday situations. The afternoon was devoted to concepts of mobility in nature, entitled “Airborne seeds”. With our Green Day events, we aim not only to inform, but to inspire reflection – in both theory and practice. GoGreen
All letter mail and parcels at the location Frankfurt/Eschborn are shipped via the GoGreen initiative of Deutsche Post and DHL. At the location Luxembourg, this environmentally friendly and sustainable programme applies to all parcel shipments. Per item, a small surplus fee is invested into CO2 emissions-reducing measures and research. The CO2 emissions produced during transport and handling of customers’ shipments are thus partially “neutralised”. Environmentally efficient data centre
In 2010, Deutsche Börse AG completed a strategic data centre services contract with Equinix Inc., a provider of global data centre services. The data centre of Equinix has been Deutsche Börse’s main data centre since 2011. Equinix not only offers the highest security standards and lowest latency, but also an environmentally friendly and resource-conscious IT infrastructure. ÖKOPROFIT – prize-winning activities In July 2010, Deutsche Börse Group again received an award for its efficient environmental management. Since 2007, the Company has been successfully participating in ÖKOPROFIT, an ecological project of the city of Frankfurt. Already in 2008, Deutsche Börse received an award in recognition of its efficient and cost-saving environmental management. Companies’ modern technological efficiency measures substantially contribute to environmental protection and, by curbing energy and water consumption and reducing waste, lower operating costs at the same time. Further information is available on the key area of Environment in our Corporate Responsibility Report [.pdf]. | 
