More Related Content
Similar to New Value in Sustainability (20)
New Value in Sustainability
- 2. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Sustainable
innovation
Three factors—Environmental,
Social and Governance (ESG)—
are central to measuring
sustainability commitments
within any organization. Accenture
is taking a holistic, integrated
approach to sustainability and our
Geographic Services team plays
a vital role as we focus on evolving
and inspiring environmental
sustainability outcomes, for
ourselves and our clients.
Providing business infrastructure
and support solutions to complement
local cultural and market needs,
Geographic Services teams are well
placed to provide the rigor and
powerful force of change needed
to meet our science-based
environmental targets.
Accenture puts sustainability at the
heart of our business—building
capabilities and integrating our
sustainability targets into everything
we do. Working with our Global IT
colleagues, Geographic Services
plays an important role in bring
sustainable innovation to Accenture.
We’ve set three clear environmental
sustainability goals—to achieve net-
zero emissions, to move to zero waste
and to plan for water risk.
“We have an opportunity
to change the business
of business by putting
sustainability front and
center of our innovation
efforts.”
MARGARET SMITH
Senior Managing Director,
Geographic Services and Business Operations,
Accenture
Call for change
Putting sustainability at the
heart of our innovation efforts
READ NOW
- 3. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Our environmental impact
When tech meets human ingenuity
As a global company with 710,000 people, we recognize the scope and scale of our
environmental impact. Powered by technology, Accenture is already making progress with
a suite of solutions in three core areas.
- 4. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
When tech meets human ingenuity
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
We’re working to achieve net-
zero emissions
We are committed to achieving net-zero
emissions by 2025. Geographic Services,
responsible for all our locations across
the world, is active in our plan to meet
our office energy needs with 100%
renewable electricity by 2023—at the
end of fiscal year 2021, 53% of electricity
purchased for our offices and centers
is through renewable sources. We are
actively sourcing renewable electricity
as part of Accenture’s participation
in the RE100, the global corporate
renewable energy initiative bringing
together hundreds of large and ambitious
businesses committed to 100% renewable
electricity. We are also engaged in
responsible buying practices, both inside
and outside Accenture. To address
remaining emissions, Accenture has
announced investments in nature-based
carbon removal projects which broadly align
with our geographic footprint. Our projects
will reforest land, rebuild biodiversity, make
agriculture more sustainable, help to create
green jobs and enable natural ecosystems
to rebound and thrive—all while removing
an estimated 13 million metric tons of
CO2 from the atmosphere.
We’re moving to zero waste
All aspects of how we run our locations
matter, which is why Accenture has
committed to reuse or recycle 100% of
our e-waste, as well as all our office
furniture, by 2025. To address e-waste,
we are working with our global IT asset
disposition partners to implement an
asset reuse program and manage
our ongoing box program to remotely
dispose of personal computers globally.
Data from our enterprise asset
management system helps us to further
manage our e-waste by spotting trends
on specific product lines or locations and
determining the effectiveness of a particular
local waste management policy. We are
working with our offices to eliminate single-
use plastics by shifting away from single-use
items; using non-plastic items, such as
bamboo, when disposable products are
offered; and providing water refill stations.
We’re planning for water risk
Aware of the broader impact we have
on the communities around us, we
are particularly conscious of water-
stressed locations and have committed
to develop water resiliency plans for our
facilities to reduce the impact of flooding,
drought and water scarcity in high-risk areas
by 2025. We use the World Resources
Institute’s (WRI) Aqueduct tool to identify
areas of water risk and impacts to local
communities. In addition to developing water
resiliency plans, we now measure and report
the total percentage of water consumed in
regions with high or extremely high baseline
water stress. Although Accenture is not a
water-intensive company, we minimize our
use of water wherever feasible, including
responsible use, reuse, management and
discharge across our office portfolio. In fiscal
2021, 37% of our company’s total water
consumption occurred in high or extremely
high baseline water-stressed regions.
- 5. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Initiatives
with impact
A valuable difference
We continue to refine our technology solutions and work with our
global locations with the guidance and support of our leadership. Our
progress through the end of fiscal year 2021:
65%
Reduction in total
emissions from our baseline
58%
Of our key suppliers*
disclosed targets and 60%
have dis-closed actions to
reduce their emissions
72%
Reduction in
Scope1 and 2 emissions
13M+
Metric tons of carbon
removals expected as a
result of investing in nature-
based carbon removals
over the next 20 years
76%
Reduction in emissions
per unit of revenue
53%
Of electricity purchased
for our offices and centers
around the world is through
renewable sources
* Key suppliers are defined as vendors that represent
a significant portion of our 2019 Scope 3 emissions.
- 6. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
A valuable difference
Thoughtful travel
To equip our people to make climate-smart travel
decisions—we launched our beta release aviation
carbon calculator which shows our people the different
emissions for specific flight alternatives for business travel
at the time of booking. To further reduce emissions from
travel, we introduced a program to encourage high-speed
train usage instead of airplane flights in five countries—
Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom—and
will expand it to other regions.
Green IT
Our global IT organization is cloud platform-powered first—
when we cannot consume a cloud platform and need to
write custom code, we use microservice architectures.
This helps further reduce the consumption of servers via a
traditional infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) approach. For
our existing high-end workloads, we constantly evaluate our
consumption through deliberate analysis of usage patterns,
performance data and new cloud offerings to drive further
efficiency that leads to optimal utilization and reduced
emissions.
Examples of where specific sustainability initiatives are having an impact include:
As Accenture continues to build on the momentum that emerged from COP26, Geographic Services is at the heart of
how Accenture operates—and will continue focusing on addressing climate change through our actions to help reduce
net-zero emissions, waste and plan for water risk. These sustainability improvements will impact our business and bring
our commitments to life.
- 7. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Meet the Team
Scott Wilson
Managing Director
Geographic Services
Director of Operations
Scott Wilson
Margaret Smith
Senior Managing Director
Global Geographic Services
and Business Operations
Margaret Smith
Lisette Smyrnios
Managing Director
Geographic Services
Global Workplace Solutions
Lisette Smyrnios
Copyright © 2022 Accenture.
All rights reserved.
Accenture and its logo
are trademarks of Accenture.