Responsibility for our environment.

Our environmental management system (EMS) is based on ISO 14001. It serves to identify negative environmental impacts and to treat risks and opportunities. The following guideline sets out the motivation for environmental protection, the key environmental goals and other central aspects of the EMS.

The guideline describes secuvera's general motivation for improving its environmental performance, the defined environmental goals and the approach to achieving them. The guideline is also published for external parties to describe secuvera's approach and show its motivation. So that the overall picture can be presented without the remaining chapters of the manual, the guideline contains redundant information on some topics.

As a service and consulting company, secuvera cannot avoid emitting CO₂ and other greenhouse gases through business travel and general operations. However, because of its social responsibility towards the community, secuvera considers itself obliged to reduce these negative environmental impacts to a minimum within its means and to use opportunities to improve its environmental performance.

secuvera's goal is never to cause unnecessary negative environmental impacts and to reduce unavoidable negative environmental impacts as far as possible.

• Requirements regarding secuvera's environmental impacts set by our clients or public authorities in the form of binding obligations must always be met.
• Avoidable negative environmental impacts caused by secuvera are to be reduced to a minimum wherever possible.
• Opportunities to improve the company's environmental performance are to be seized within our means.
• Environmental information should always be communicated transparently and openly within the company, so that everyone can contribute to improving environmental performance.

To ensure that secuvera can make its contribution to the ecological pillar of sustainability in line with society's expectations, risks and opportunities relating to environmental performance must be continuously identified, assessed and treated. In order to carry this out and steer it within an appropriate framework, secuvera operates an environmental management system (EMS). Management provides the necessary human and financial resources to achieve the environmental goals.

The environmental goals cannot be achieved through the activities of individuals alone, which is why secuvera takes responsibility not only as individuals but also as a whole. While everyone's participation is necessary to implement the measures, constructive criticism and general feedback from all sides are also welcome and required in order to achieve the highest possible acceptance and the best possible result for the environment.

Although offsetting negative environmental impacts alone is never an appropriate practice, secuvera nevertheless considers itself obliged to offset environmental impacts that could not be avoided. secuvera regards it as its own responsibility to offset the negative environmental impacts of its business activities through suitable measures. Offsetting usually takes place by supporting suitable projects. Only projects that are ecologically and socially sustainable according to internationally recognised standards are selected. In secuvera's view, the usual market costs for offsetting are too low in relation to the long-term damage to the environment.

It is never the goal to engage in greenwashing with the lowest possible offsetting costs. To ensure a lasting benefit from offsetting, secuvera commits to voluntary over-compensation by applying higher offsetting costs than may be necessary. The costs per tonne of CO₂ equivalent are based on the applicable CO₂ price regulations of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. This approach allows secuvera to offset significantly more CO₂ equivalents through supported projects than it has caused.